The highest concentration of elephants in all of Africa
Chobe National Park is the most famous park in Botswana because it boasts over 120,000 elephants: the highest concentration on the entire continent. The park takes its name from the river that traces its north-eastern border with Namibia. The waterway rises in Angola where it’s called the Cuando, crosses a stretch of Namibia where it becomes the Kwando, and then reaches Botswana where it’s renamed the Chobe.
Inside the park you can identify several areas worth visiting.
Chobe Riverfront, better known as Serondela, is the most easily accessible and therefore most visited area. It stretches along the riverbanks and is characterized by lush vegetation, with grassy plains and teak forests. It’s also the area where most animals concentrate, especially large herbivores including elephants and buffalo.
Savuti includes the Savuti Marshes and the Mabane Depression, what remains of a prehistoric lake that dried up over time. It’s an area of savannas and grasslands, which during the rainy season attracts wildebeest, zebras, warthogs and consequently predators like lions, hyenas and cheetahs. One of the main attractions in this area is the Savuti Channel, an a mysterious river with an unpredictable nature that fills and dries up independently of rainfall.
Where the course of the Chobe widens into a floodplain you’ll find the Linyanti Marshes. Riverine vegetation grows lushly along channels and lagoons, which host crocodiles and hippos and attract many other species, especially during the dry season. In this area you can also observe antelopes, leopards, lions and numerous bird varieties.
In fact Chobe National Park is a famous destination for both safari and bird watching. Over 450 species have been recorded, a real paradise for any birding enthusiast, who may be lucky enough to spot sought-after species like the bateleur eagle, the southern carmine bee-eater, the African skimmer and many others.