Our first camp in the wilds of southern Africa was the Baobab Safari Lodge. It’s located on a private reserve adjacent to Chobe National Park in Botswana. The camp was on the ledge of a hillside and overlooked a large chunk of land, most of which was in Namibia. So the camp was adjacent to Chobe NP and also on the border of Botswana and Namibia. We liked all the camps and all of them were similar in their layout and operations. Camps consisted of a main building which was mostly just a pole building with a roof. The primary functions of this building were meals, drinks and meetings. Then there was a group of tents or tent-cabins, usually ten or less. Other than that, there were only a few staff quarters buildings and an outbuilding or storage building and that was it. These lodges were well staffed and we received very good service, even including free laundry service.

These are photos of the Baobab Lodge in Botswana.

Upon arriving at a lodge, the staff would be there to welcome us with songs and sometimes dancing. They would also hand us a cold washcloth to wipe our faces and hands each time we arrived at camp. We were served a cold drink when we arrived and sometimes snacks. The staff were always smiling and friendly and we really enjoyed their singing.

This is Cory standing in front of her tent-cabin. The cabins at this lodge had real walls and floors. Above that was a canvas tent roof. I didn’t mind except that it was windy here some of the time and the tent roof flapped much of the night, sometimes making a lot of noise.

Our cabin was right next to Cory’s and this is the view from our cabin porch. You can see that there was no fencing. From here, we saw all sorts of animals including elephants, zebra, baboons (who lived in the nearby trees), cape buffalo, warthogs, many varieties of antelope, sable, giraffes, and many birds. If you look down the hillside, you can see a line of green trees at the bottom of the hill. That is part of the Chobe River. All the land on the other side of the river is Namibia.

We were escorted by camp staff to and from our tents, except during daylight hours. Once in our tents at night, we had no communications with anyone. There were no phones or electronic communications in place. We could hear wild animals all night long, including some of the big cats. Our directions IF we had a problem at night, such as a wild animal problem, were to blow the air-horn, turn on our lights, and the staff would come rescue us. You can see that Vicky was fully prepared to signal for help. You will also notice that we had mosquito netting over our beds but the bugs were really not bad at all in Chobe.

You can see our chef working at the BBQ. Most everything at these camps was done somewhat out in the open. The chef’s biggest chore was probably watching out for baboons and other varmints. She was BBQ’ing steaks, sausage, and pork chops for dinner. I had some of each and they were all good. The rest of dinner included corn soup, homemade bread, polenta with tomato sauce, butternut squash, spinach, and watermelon for dessert. On this night, we ate outside in the open in the area behind and to the right of the chef.