Caprivi Strip: Mahango Game Reserve & Kavango
Namibia & South Africa, July – August 2024
Day 2 – Jul 12: Windhoek – Grootfontein (Roy’s Rest Camp)
Willem-Jan and Willeke’s arrival flight was delayed to this morning, due to bad weather in Europe… As Mega and I had already done all shopping yesterday we arranged to meet at the airport, pick-up our second car and start our journey direct from the airport in Windhoek, heading to Grootfontein for a stop-over on our way to Caprivi.
We arrived there in the afternoon, and spend our first night in the bush at the very nice and comfortable Roy’s Rest Camp. I had stayed in this camp during my first rip to Namibia, back in 2018, also on our way to Caprivi.
Day 3 – Jul 13: Grootfontein – Divundu, Mahango Game Reserve (Ngepi Camp)
This day we drove via Rundu to Divundu, in the Caprivi Strip. Caprivi is a narrow protrusion of land in Northeast Namibia, bordered by Botswana, Angola and Zambia. It is Namibia’s most water-rich area, with the Okavango and Kwando rivers flowing through it from Angola, with the Okavango flowing into Botswana and the Kwando becoming the Chobe river, before merging with the mighty Zambezi river from Zambia, just before the famous Victoria Falls on the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Our main destination here is the Mahango Game Reserve, which I first visited in 2018. Although this park is relative small and little known, it’s an absolute fantastic park with lots of diverse wildlife and good start for a Namibia safari!
From Grootfontein we drove north and passed the vet fence. What is most striking once you pass the vet fence is the enormous difference in scenery as well as people living here. South of the fence the landscape is dominated by enormous cattle and wild farms and plantations, with very few traditional villages. It doesn’t really feel particularly “Africa”. But once you pass the fence you suddenly arrive on a complete different planet: THIS is Africa, this is how we learnt about it at school, 40 years ago or so. And most striking is that it seems that really nothing has changed, at least not for the majority of people living here. They are very, very poor and hardly have anything…
We decided to visit one of the traditional houses which are dotted along the almost perfectly straight road. We didn’t want to just stop and walk into someone’s privacy though, so we decided to stop near a few traditional houses and have lunch first, hoping for some local kids to come to us and then ask if they can show us around at their homes. We didn’t have to wait very long to have some kids come closer to check us out…
An hour later we were back in the car, driving over this perfectly straight road, lined with little fields and traditional villages and mud houses.
We arrived around lunch time at Ngepi Camp, a fantastic camp on the shore of the Okavango river, also called the Kavango. We checked in and booked a sunrise river cruise for the next day. In 2018 I had been here before as well, so I pretty much knew what to do and where to go to get the most of our stay here.
The entrance of the Mahango Game Reserve is less than half an hour from Ngepi Camp. The reserve is split by a road that connects Namibia with Botswana; each side of this road offers a distinctly different habitat and a sand track leads through each of them. One side consists of the floodplains of the Mahango river, which later becomes the Kavango river and then feeds the Okavango delta. The other side is further away from the river, more dry and patches of savannah surrounded by thicker bush. There’s also a man-made waterhole, to provide a lifeline for its wildlife. Always a good place to visit.
In the afternoon we did a game drive through the floodplains first.
With already so much wildlife we ended up not making it all the way to the viewpoint at the farthest point on the floodplains, as we had to make sure to be out of the park’s gate before sunset, when the gate simply will be locked…
Day 4 – Jul 14: Mahango Game Reserve
In the morning we did a private sunrise river cruise, which was really good fun and the guide of Ngepi Camp was excellent. Of course the hippos were the main target, but also crocodiles, buffaloes and of course plenty of birds.
It was an awesome trip on the river, so much to see! What is surprising is that how few boats you see; this part of Namibia is still relative unknown amongst the fast increasing number of visitors, while these wetlands add so much to a Namibia experience, which is generally very dry and mostly dominated by desert landscapes and dry riverbeds.
Back in camp we had breakfast and then went on our next safari drive, again to the floodplains we visited the day before.
Back in camp we had breakfast and decided to take it easy for a while, and only after lunch we went on our next safari drive, this time to the other side of the park, and visit the waterhole.
This side of the park is not as rich in wildlife, but we were hoping to see some new animals. And we did: near the waterhole we found a small herd of Roan antelope, a fairly rare antelope that likes to dwell the savanna.
Day 5 – Jul 15: Divundu – Mobola Island Lodge
We wanted to explore a bit more of the Caprivi strip and at the same time shorten a bit the drive to our next destination. So we decided to travel a little west along the Kavango river, to a place recommended to us by our car rental company: the Mobola Island Lodge. A fairly luxury safari lodge, but also with some excellent camp sites, right on the shore of the river.
We booked another private river cruise, to explore not only the Namibian side of the river, but also the other side, which is Angola.
An excellent last afternoon along the Kavango river, making ourselves ready for our next destination and experience: the San bushmen, one of the indigenous tribes of Namibia!
