On the paths of the gentle giants

9 days On the paths of the gentle giants

impressive elephant population in Hwange, the mighty waterfalls in all their glory and the fascinating game viewing along the Zambezi and Chobe rivers, the lifelines of the region

Price: $ 4.950 US Dollar per person

Day 1 -3

Transfer Victoria Falls Airport - Hwange National Park

Itinerary

After your arrival at the airport in Victoria Falls, you will be met by a driver and taken to your accommodation by shared road transfer. On the way there, you will already be on your first little game drive. Looking out...

... the window, you are sure to catch a glimpse or two of the many wild animals in the area.

Hwange National Park
Hwange National Park is named after a Nhanzwa tribal chief and is the largest national park in Zimbabwe, covering approximately 14,650 square kilometers (the size of Northern Ireland). It is located in the northwest of the country, about an hour south of the ...

... mystical Victoria Falls. To the west, the park borders Botswana and to the east, the National Railway tracks form the park's boundary. At night, guests staying in camps near the tracks can hear trains honking their horns to scare away wild animals from the tracks. In the early 19th century, it became the royal hunting grounds of the warrior chief Mzilikazi, of the Ndebele tribe, and was not declared a national park until 1929. Hwange is home to a large concentration of wildlife, with over 100 different species of mammals and almost 400 species of birds.

The elephants of Hwange are world famous and the park's elephant population is one of the largest in the world at 35,000. As a result, elephants can be seen at almost every waterhole during the dry season. Lions, leopards, cheetahs, rhinos, buffalo, impala, kudu, sable and eland antelopes, waterbucks, zebras, giraffes, baboons and wild boars can also be seen in the park.

Due to the park's vast size, the landscape is very diverse and ranges from deep Kalahari sand in the south to a rocky landscape in the north. The open savannah in the southeast leads the way to dense teak forest, which in turn transitions into mopane forest. Many habitats are rich in wildlife, birds and general flora. As the park is located in a very dry region in terms of its water resources, water for the waterholes is pumped up using underground wells. Some of these waterholes have viewing points where you can sit and watch wildlife in peace, making the park a great year-round destination.

Bomani Tented Lodge (3 nights)
The charming Bomani Tented Lodge in the famous Hwange National Park offers the perfect location for game viewing. Hardly any other camp can top the level of privacy.

Accommodation: Bomani Tented Lodge

Day 4-5

Transfer Hwange National Park - Victoria Falls

After breakfast, you will travel by road transfer from the beautiful Hwange National Park to the magnificent Victoria Falls. Your guide will drive you directly to your accommodation. Batonka Guest Lodge (2 nights)
The Batonka Guest Lodge is located in the quiet residential area of Victoria Falls. The lively town centre of Victoria Falls is a 10-minute walk away and the entrance to the Victoria Falls Rainforest and the waterfalls is only about 2.2 km away.

Victoria Falls
The day is yours to spend as you wish. We are happy to book other activities for you, such as a sunset cruise on the Zambezi, a helicopter flight or a guided tour of Victoria Falls National Park. At Victoria Falls, the ground opens up and swallows one of Africa's largest rivers, the mighty Zambezi, creating the widest continuous waterfall in the world. When the water hits the narrow Batoka Gorge below, it creates a cloud of mist that rises to the sky, giving the waterfall its local name "Mosi-oa-tunya" (the thundering smoke). When the Zambezi is in flood, the mist forms a permanent rain cloud over the waterfall, giving visitors a shower even on the sunniest of days and is visible for miles.

Above the falls, tour boats cruise the calm Zambezi at sunset, while the fading sunlight breaks in the distant spray of the waterfall. Through the rocky walls of the Batoka Gorge, the Zambezi River below the falls provides a chain of world-class rapids, a prime opportunity for white water rafting.

Aside from being a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the World's Natural Wonders, Victoria Falls also forms a natural border between Zimbabwe and Zambia. The falls can be visited from both countries and for the most part the same activities are offered, including helicopter tours, village visits and souvenir shopping.

Whether you prefer to relax by drinking tea in colonial surroundings or by taking an exciting bungee jump from a bridge is entirely up to you. In Victoria Falls, neither the adrenaline junkie nor the visitor with slightly weaker nerves will get bored even after several days.

On the Zambian side, you are offered a side view of the falls and a look into the Batoka Gorge. However, you can also venture to the very edge of the falls at dizzying heights on Livingstone Island.

In Zimbabwe, many vantage points and a hiking trail offer you a frontal view of three quarters of the 1.7 km wide curtain of water as you stroll through a natural hot and wet rainforest created by the spray from the falls.

Accommodation: Batonka Guest Lodge

Day 6-8

Victoria Falls - Chobe National Park

Victoria Falls - Chobe National Park
You will be picked up from your accommodation in the morning and taken by shared road transfer across the border to Botswana, to the airport in Kasane. Your camp guide will be waiting for you at the meeting point. He will drive you on an en-route game drive and to your next accommodation in the western part of the national park, where you will spend the next few days discovering the Chobe

Chobe Elephant Camp (3 nights)
The Chobe Elephant Camp is located high on a cliff overlooking the famous Chobe River. The location and unique design of the lodge offers guests great views over the impressive floodplains while also providing a comfortable retreat from the harsh African conditions.

Chobe National Park
During your stay, you will undertake exciting activities with your guide and explore the Chobe National Park. You can choose from the various activities and always discuss them with your guide or the management the evening before.

The Chobe Riverfront is an elephant mecca. Nowhere else in the world will you find a greater concentration of elephants per square kilometre than here. Just visit in the African winter and you will quickly run out of fingers and toes to count all the pachyderms that come to the river to drink and play.

Thanks to its proximity to Victoria Falls, the Chobe Riverfront is the part of Botswana with the highest number of visitors (although still much quieter than most areas of southern and eastern Africa). But what Chobe lacks in solitude is more than made up for in both the quality and quantity of animals.

Nowhere else do you feel so incredibly tiny as in Chobe, when an impressive bull elephant strolls leisurely past your car or swims across the river very close to your boat. Nowhere else do you feel so insignificant as in Chobe, compared to the hundreds of hippos and Cape buffalo that populate the river meadows. When prides of lions stalk antelopes on the bank, your heart will beat in your throat. All the exciting moments of your safari day will fall silent when the red sun sinks into the river accompanied by the calls of the African fish eagles.

Chobe is not only a wonderful introduction to a Botswana safari, the area also offers the safari connoisseur some animals that rarely appear. The sable antelope, some gems on the wish list of many bird lovers and also a few quiet, remote corners that invite you to explore.