Mombo Camp

At the northern tip of Chief's Island, in the Moremi Game Reserve of Botswana's Okavango Delta, Mombo Camp stands on raised decks above floodplains so rich in game that the name is usually translated as place of plenty. Wilderness Safaris rebuilt the camp in 2018 with nine tents, alongside a smaller sister, Little Mombo, with three.

History

Chief's Island takes its name from its past as the hunting ground of the Batawana chiefs. In 1963 the Batawana, led by Pulane Moremi, widow of Chief Moremi III, set the area aside as a game reserve, one of the first in Africa created by a local people on their own land, and it was named after the chief.

Mombo grew from a small tented camp into the best-known of the Wilderness Safaris camps in Botswana, and it played a part in the return of rhino to the delta. Both white and black rhino had been lost to poaching in Botswana by the early 1990s. From 2001 white rhino were released on Chief's Island, with black rhino following, and the Mombo area became the base for monitoring them. In 2014 the Okavango Delta was inscribed by UNESCO as the thousandth World Heritage Site.

Architecture and design

The 2018 rebuild kept the camp on its island and raised everything above the floodplain on decks and walkways, so that lion, elephant and buffalo can pass beneath. The main area sits under large shade trees, with a pool and open sides facing the plains. The tents are large, with canvas walls and wide decks, and the design keeps the floodplain in view from almost everywhere.

Rooms and suites

Mombo has nine tents and Little Mombo three, each with a private plunge pool and a deck facing the floodplain. Little Mombo has its own main area, dining and guides, and is often booked by a single family or group of friends, so it works as a private camp beside the larger one.

Dining

Meals are taken in the main area facing the plains, or on the deck when game is close. The day follows the rhythm of most Botswana camps: coffee before a dawn drive, a late brunch on return, tea in the afternoon and dinner after the evening drive.

Location

The Okavango rises in the highlands of Angola and spreads into a fan of channels, islands and floodplains in north-western Botswana, ending in the sands of the Kalahari rather than the sea. The flood arrives from the north months after the summer rains and peaks in the dry winter, between June and August, when the plains around Mombo fill with water and game concentrates on the islands and their margins.

Mombo is a land camp in delta terms. Game drives are the main activity, and the area has long been filmed for its lion prides and leopard, along with large herds of buffalo and red lechwe, wild dog and the rhino of Chief's Island. Water activities by mokoro are run from other camps in the delta, where the channels are deeper.

Guests reach this luxury safari camp in the Okavango Delta by light aircraft, usually from Maun or Kasane, landing at the Mombo airstrip on Chief's Island, a flight of under an hour from Maun, and driving the last stretch to camp. Chief's Island itself, the largest in the delta at about 70 kilometres long, is dry ground for most of its length, which is why the game stays on it when the flood comes. Maun has the nearest international connections, with flights from Johannesburg.