Botswana Safaris: Savute Safari Lodge and Camp Moremi - June 1 - June 6, 2026
We left The Elephant Camp early Monday morning with one of the resort’s drivers and drove to the Zimbabwe/Botswana border, about an hour away. The crossing into Botswana was unusual, to say the least. Our driver handed us over to a Botswana driver who walked us through the entry procedures for Botswana. First, we had to stop at a station where the attendant looked at our passports to ensure we had enough blank pages for their entry and exit stamps. We then moved to a station where someone actually inspected and stamped our passports. From there we had to step into a tray with disinfectant solution to ensure we weren’t bringing hand and foot disease into the country. Lastly, we drove to another building where we had to take all the other shoes we brought with us and put them in the disinfectant solution. After this, we were finally able to enter the country.
Our driver took us to Botswana’s major airport in Kesane where we waited for our bush plane to take us to Savute Safari Lodge in Chobe National Park located in the Kalahari Desert. Once we landed at the Savute airstrip, our guide, Isaac, was there to meet us and the two other couples with whom we would be spending the next 3 days.
After our stay at Savute Lodge we flew to Camp Moremi (again, via bush plane) in the northern part of Botswana. This camp is located on an island in the Okavango Delta. The vegetation between the two safari camps couldn't have been more different. Where Savute was primarily dry grasslands with scattered Acacia trees and other smaller trees and bushes offering some shade from the afternoon sun, Camp Moremi was an area of lush vegetation and water-logged, sometimes even washed-out, roads.
The primary activities at Savute and Camp Moremi were game drives and meals/happy hours, although Camp Moremi also offered a boat cruise on the delta. For the next 6 days we followed the schedule below:
6:00 am: Wake up call
6:30 am: Breakfast
7:00 am - 11:00 am: Morning Game Drive
12:00 pm: Lunch
3:00 pm: Tea Time
3:30 pm - 6:00: Sundowner Game Drive/Boat cruise on the Okavango Delta
7:30 pm: Dinner
Since each day morphed into the next, I’ll just share pictures of some of the animals we saw. Besides the pictures below, we also saw multiple varieties of birds and ducks, more antelope species including kudus, both the banded and dwarf mongoose, baboons galore (especially at Camp Moremi), and two leopards, one who moved too fast for us to get a picture and the other who was too far away for the camera to capture anything other than the rocks it was climbing.
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| A magnificent lion and lioness |
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| This male lion tried to mount the female and this was her way of saying "Not now, Leo" |
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| This lioness almost looks like she's stalking prey |
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| Elephants at the watering hole |
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| Late afternoon drink |
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| Looks like this elephant just took a mud bath |
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| The graceful giraffe |
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| Mama cheetah and her young |
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| The very illusive hyena |
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| Young male impala |
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| Waterbucks |
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| At Savute, we saw the annual migration of zebras as they headed north to the Okavango Delta |
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| Wildebeest |
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| Warthog - Disney's "Pumba" |
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| Hippo in the Okavango Delta |
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| This was my favorite bird (and also Botswana's national bird) - the lilac-breasted roller. When in flight, its wings are a brilliant turquoise |
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| Yellow-beaked hornbill |
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| Africa's majestic eagle |
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| Our last evening in Africa with a cruise on the Okavango Delta |
