Chobe National Park, Botswana Safari holiday
Chobe National Park, in northwest Botswana, has one of the largest game concentrations in the African continent. The park is probably best known for its spectacular elephant population: 50,000 elephants today, it is actually the highest elephant concentration of Africa. It is the second largest park in the country after the Central Kalahari Game Reserve and is the most diverse. Its uniqueness in the abundance of wildlife and the true African nature of the region, offers a safari experience of a lifetime.
The Chobe River runs along the northern border of Chobe National Park. It rises in the northern Angolan highlands, where it is called the Kwando and travels enormous distances through Kalahari sands before reaching Botswana; here it becomes the Linyanti until it reaches Ngoma where it becomes the Chobe. Here the vegetation becomes trampled by the large herds of elephant that frequent the river's edge, especially in the drier months of September and October, when herds of 500 or more are often seen. Away from the river, the pans and mopane forests support large numbers of buffalo and lion.
West of the Chobe National Park, on the Botswana/Namibia border, lie the Linyanti Marshes. Relatively unknown and bordered by over 50 miles of the Kwando River, this is prime big game country. Huge Ebony and Marula trees, whose fruit is a favourite of elephants, shade the river and its resident hippo whilst, further south, fronting onto the Linyanti Woodlands, are open grasslands teeming with herds of animals and solitary predators.