click here: BACK TO Botswana-START-PAGE Chobe National Park, Botswana Elephant Valley Lodge     Date:                       03.-05.10.2007   Assessment Criteria Satisfaction  in % Comments Pool 60   Tent/ Room 60 functional Restaurant atmosphere 70   Food 60   Management & Staff 60 Sean & Eugene Camp/ Lodge 70   Originality of reserve 70   Diversity of reserve 80   Vehicle 60 packed with 9 tourists, clearly unaccaptable Guide - communication 80   Guide - information 70   Guide - cust. orientation 70   Wildlife - quantity  80   Wildlife - diversity 90   Wildlife - extraordinary occurrences 80 elephant herd crossing chobe river to escape the fire in Namibia       Chobe National Park is during this time of the year very dry. All bush and - if there are not yet fully eaten by elephants - are yellow-grey-ish and only occasionally one may find a small green leaf on a bush which specialised for this uncomfortable conditions. However, there is a big river going through the Park - the Chobe River which is a garden eden to a lot of animals. Unfortunatey, not only to the animals: Almost all game drives are targeting this area and as such one may find a couple of lions circled by 14 (!) vehicles each loaded with at least 6-8 tourists plus guide. Passing this jam is simply not possible as the path and all solid area around is packed. Since Chobe is a National Park it is open to the public during the day. Whoever favors to drive through the park with their own vehicle can do so, which results in even more cars. It is worth mentioning that we were there in October which isn't even the peak season. We were lucky and happy that Chobe was our first stop as we figured later that this was by far the most swamped spot we visited. On the other hand, we did see a lot of animals since the river certainly acts like a magnet to them.   On the first we had marked off most animals on our "imaginary" check list, such as: Elephants (in great numbers!!!) Hippos Antilopes Liones Buffalos Gnus Krockodiles many birds Baboons   We did both, game drives and boat rides. We actually enjoyed the both rides even more since it was less shaky, less packed, and we could get even closer to the animals (except lions) as they usually hang around the river. We were lucky to see a big herd of elephants crossing the river which is a very breath-taking experience.   Our guide was Eugene - a very friendly and open guy, pointing out the animals and always prepared to answer questions or offer explanations.   The Elephant Valley lodge is "okayish". We received a friendly welcome and the rules and conditions were made clear to us while we were sipping our welcome drink. The lodge was built next to a waterhole and the main area with restaurant and bar was facing this way. Our tent was luckily alos facing that way as a couple of other (Tent number 16- 20). That way we could not only view the animals coming to the waterhole while having breakfast, lunch or dinner but also from our terrace in front of the tent. Further more, we were able to listen to the animals at night when they came to the waterhole for a drink. Elephant Valley Lodge is fenced against elephants and buffalos. We were explained that the lodge is very close to the Zimbabwe border and that the buffalos are hunted in Zimbabwe. When the buffalos reach the camp they are fairly stressed and aggressive. Since the camp does not want to take any chances with the tourists, they put up the fence. However, the fence is no guard against lions or leopards and therefore we were asked not to leave the tent after midnight and we were accompanied to our tentafter dinner. We thought this habit a little awkward since on our game drives we saw that the predators were already active during sun set.   Food and drinks were simple, especially looking back after the stays at the other lodges. For example, sun downers provided were beer or soft drinks - no GinTonis !   Concluding, we did not mind not staying at a lodge within the national park since there was a lot to see on the drive up and from. On the contrary, viewing the traffic jam near the Chobe river, we enjoyed the calm at "our" waterhole.