STYLE June 1987On the backs of the Chobe River, herds of elephant still roam free. And you can view them from the deck of an old river boat while sipping a civilized sundowner. It’s the best of both worlds.
When Chobe Game Lodge opened 15 years ago, it caused quite a stir. Travel writers stampeded to this furthest corner of Botswana and returned to trumpet its praise. Fashion editors responded to that rather ridiculous marketing ploy, so beloved of PRs launching new destinations, and flew off to photograph exotic clothes against this Moorish style structure. And when Liz Taylor and Richard Burton chose Chobe as the venue for their much publicized second marriage, its reputation as a very special safari lodge was assured.
Then came the Rhodesian War. With Chobe situated right on the border, tourists feared being caught in the crossfire and stopped coming. Dwindling custom sadly forced the Lodge to close in 1977. Five years later Jonathan Gibson, who had often camped in that area in his youth, bought the Lodge. He says in that short period nature had virtually reclaimed it. “ the place looked like a Mayan relic, overgrown with creepers. Elephant had rubbed themselves against the pillars and cracked them. The gardens had completely disappeared and the swimming pools on the patios of the four private suites had collapsed.”
Gibson and his original partners restored the Lodge to its former glory and today, with new sole partners Sun International and the area around the Lodge proclaimed a national park, Chobe Game Lodge is once again a favored destination of both the international and the South African traveler.
Last month I visited Chobe for the first time. We took off from Lanseria in a chartered plane at Sun International Melanie Millin’s habitual pre-dawn hour and flew over the flecked grey expanse of the Kalahari arriving at the airstrip three hours later. From there we took a riverboat to the Lodge. Here days follow the usual safari lodge pattern: early morning game drives, midday lizarding at the pool, late afternoon game viewing and drawn-out dinners on the Lodge’s long verandah overlooking the beautiful Chobe River.
So what makes Chobe special? It is not the lodge itself, for all its undeniable comfort and attractive bush ambience. And it is certainly not the table, which quite frankly leaves much to be desired. No, what sets Chobe apart from any other lodge I have visited is the river and the elephant. But most of all the elephant.
It must be 20 years ago that I read The Roots of Heaven, yet a passage from the novel has stayed with me over the decades. This is where the hero, while confined in a prisoner-of-war camp, conjures up a mental image to preserve his sanity. In his mind’s eye he sees huge herds of elephant roaming free across the vast plains of Africa. It is his image of freedom. Today that image is virtually a vision of the past. Elephant have been decimated by poachers and hunters and their domain diminishes daily as man encroaches further and further onto their natural habitat. Today these majestic animals are largely confined to reserves where they are both protected from man and culled by man to ensure the scientific survival of the fittest.
The elephant of Chobe are no less threatened than elephant everywhere. Indeed Chobe National Park carries more elephant per hectare than the Kruger Park, they have not been culled for the past five years, and with appetites like combine harvesters their future looks bleak. But for the present they are lords of Chobe. Naturally the park boasts many other animal species but it elephant that appear ubiquitous.
At Chobe you see herd after herd of elephant, some numbering 50 or more. You see them browsing, suckling their young, playing in the river, trumpeting in mock fury at your presence. There are anxious young cows and arrogant youths. There are new-born calves still covered in reddish hair like little latter-day mammoths. And there are battle-scarred bulls with memories of the old, wild Africa. The other thing that makes Chobe special is that you can view elephant from the river. The Mosi-Oa-Tunya cruised the water above the Victoria Falls for 20 years before Jonathan Gibson bought her and brought her and brought her to Chobe. She’s not quite African Queen and not quite a Mississippi riverboat. But whatever she is there is no doubt the sundowner cruse down the Chobe River is game viewing with a difference.
Sitting on the deck of the Mosi-Oa-Tunya sipping champagne, you watch buck come down to the water’s edge to drink and fish eagle dive with unerring accuracy on their prey in the river. You can drift past elephant gamboling in the shallows and nudge hippos as they float away a blissfully buoyant existence. These are the things that make Chobe special, the moments not to be missed. | 
