Squeezed into Botswana's northeastern corner - in between the great flow of the Zambezi River and the Okavango Delta - Chobe National Park is a wildlife haven set in a complex meeting point of international borders and globally important protected areas. To the north lies Namibia's wildlife-rich Caprivi Stripe, extending like a finger into Africa's centre. A little further to the northeast and you'll find the meeting point of Zambia and Zimbabwe, right where the Zambezi River becomes Victoria Falls - 'the smoke that thunders'. Finally, a little further to the southeast you encounter Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe's largest reserve.
Perhaps it is not surprising that Botswana's oldest protected area, the country's third largest national park covering 11,700km², is one of Africa's greatest and most densely populated in terms of wildlife. The park's rich water resources and nearness to other huge reserves have maintained a massive inter-connected landscape - some of Africa's most pristine. It is a haven and migration route for many of Africa's great beasts. You will find some of the greatest populations of Elephants here; in the dry winter season perhaps 50,000 may be present, drawn to the permanent water of the Chobe. This is a living vista rare to find in the 21st century.
Two parts of Chobe National Park deserve more interest to us. main areas and how we visit them.
The Chobe River & Savuti deserve their own more detailed descriptions, so please click below for those:
Ngwezumba Pans & the Dry Interior
Much of Chobe National Park's wildlife shifts in the hot summer 'rainy season' to the normally dry clay flatlands and woodlands of the Ngwezumba Pans and other areas south of the Chobe River. At this time a harsh dry section of Chobe suddenly blossoms into life. Wildlife, which during dry periods are forced to stay close to permanent water, spreads across Ngwezumba and beyond, making use of the area's seasonal greening.
In years when rainfall has been stronger, water holes in the Ngwezumba Pans have sustained populations of game year round.
