Imagine a place where you can witness lion kills in open grasslands throughout the day. A place where you can fly over the same buffalo herd for a solid ten minutes, the spectacle stretching the breadth of the horizon. Where you’ll be dazzled by thousands of zebra, their migration creating a world of black and white. A place where you will stay at the only lodge in more than 120,000 acres. Imagine having an area the size of Barbados all to yourself. This is the new Wilderness Mokete Lodge in the re-invigorated and new Mababe area.
The science behind the Mababe ecosystem is due to a significant change over the last 15+ years. The Mababe River supported a substantial wetland in the depression during the second half of the 19th century. The river reached the Mababe depression in 1910 before drying up. It then later reached the depression again in 1925 and again in the late fifties and late seventies. Famed stories of immense buffalo herds and huge prides of lion hunting these herds were assumed to be just that…stories…urban myth or legend…Then in 2007, the Mababe river started flowing again, creating a wetland in the Southern part of the depression and today that wetland covers a surface area of nearly 6000 acres of marsh with much bigger grassland plains north of the marsh! The result… it’s not uncommon to see 2,000-strong buffalo herds, tsessebe in their hundreds, and an extraordinary migration as massive herds of zebra pass through at the turn of the summer season. Lions actively hunt throughout the day, while a high density of hyenas constantly competes with the attendant suite of other predators: cheetah, wilddog, bat-eared fox, jackal, African wild cat and serval. The mopane belt to the east of the vast plains is home to leopard and numerous woodland species, while the edges of the marsh host prolific bird life and some of the highest densities of breeding herds of elephant in Botswana.
A new, and one of the most unique ecosystems, in Botswana, unlike anywhere else in the country: the great expanse and immense grasslands of the legendary Mababe.
Check out this sample itinerary here.
