This Is the Only Safari Camp for Miles in a Corner of Botswana—Here’s What It’s Like

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The Afar take

Set alongside northern Botswana’s little-visited Mababe Depression, Wilderness Mokete sits at the heart of a wildlife-rich swathe of land teeming with elephants, giraffes, and zebras. Leopards hide in the mopane fringe, and you can spot rare roan antelopes traipsing through the tall grasses. One of Africa’s largest buffalo populations gathers here in a dust-kicking mega herd that stretches all the way to the horizon, while the area’s exceptionally high density of lions has a healthy appetite for fresh meat (buffalo, gazelle, zebra—they’re not too fussy) and often puts up a hair-raising show. The best part? Tiny Mokete is the only camp in the 124,000-acre private concession it sits in, so the spectacle is all yours.

Courtesy of Wilderness Mokete

Who’s it for?

This is prime territory for seasoned safari enthusiasts. Mababe’s enormous size means that drives between wildlife sightings can be rather long and, at times, monotonous—but close encounters with some of Africa’s largest herds of buffalo and sprawling lion prides make it well worth the effort. Wildlife photographers shouldn’t miss the camp’s sunken hide near the aptly named “Elephant Paradise” watering hole, which sees dozens of tuskers pass by throughout the day.

Unless you pay an additional fee for a private vehicle, all game drives—and meals—are communal. While this means you’re bound to fall into pleasant chit chat and intriguing conversations with fellow guests from around the world, it also means that Mokete isn’t the best choice for introverts or honeymooners looking for privacy. The high density of predators and the open design of the camp also make it unsuitable for families with young children (the minimum age for guests is 16 years).

The location

Guides and helicopter pilots will gleefully tell you that you’re in for a spectacle when you mention that Mokete is on your itinerary. Mokete is the only camp around the Mababe Depression, a patchwork of marshy grasslands, savannas, and mopane bush thicket wedged between the Chobe National Park and the Moremi Game Reserve on the eastern edge of the Okavango Delta. This means that you’ll have the camp’s 124,000 acres of game-rich private concession land almost all to yourself. At any given time, a maximum of just four other vehicles will roam around the concession’s dirt roads.

Getting here isn’t as straightforward as many of Wilderness’s more centrally located camps around the country, but that is part of the fun: a small plane flight from Maun to the remote Santawani airstrip gives you a taste of the region’s wild landscape, while the 20-minute helicopter transfer that follows has you zoom over the vast Mababe grasslands so closely that you’re likely able to check a few Big Five species off your list before you’ve even touched down on the camp’s helipad. (An airstrip closer to the camp is in the works, and expected to open in the next year or two.)

The rooms

The camp has just nine tents branching off a stilted wooden walkway with plenty of space in between. Each one is identical in size and layout, featuring a terrace, a plunge pool, and gauzy window screens in lieu of walls. Interiors are kept refreshingly light and simple, with ceilings and room-dividers fashioned from sisal rope, leather-trimmed desks, and bed curtains made with flowy linen. Part of each tent’s cantilevered canvas roof can slide open, allowing you to fall asleep to views of a star-filled night sky and to the sound of hyenas laughing.

The food and drink

Breakfasts, lunches, and dinners in the breezy dining area are communal affairs (though there are a few tables set aside for guests looking for privacy). Days start early with a hot coffee and a simple buffet of oatmeal, fruit, and eggs before game drives, then follow with a brunch buffet upon return. Like dinner, meals cooked up by chef Nkokeland Ntongwane are simple but delicious: expect a selection of fresh Mediterranean salads, African stews, and local riffs on global classics (the Caesar salad dressing, for example, is made with amasi, a zingy fermented milk). Your game drive will be interrupted by bush breaks with Amarula-spiked coffee and addictive chocolate cookies in the morning, or elaborate pop-up bars with gin and tonics at sunset.

Courtesy of Wilderness Mokete

Staff and service

From the housekeepers to the camp managers and guides, every staff member is Botswanan. Most of them hail from Mababe village, which sits across the marsh some 40 minutes away, and have received training at Wilderness’s other camps in Botswana before starting at Mokete. The service might not yet be as smooth as at Wilderness’s more premium properties (a certain nervousness still lingered in the air during my visit), but the team’s genuine eagerness to make each guest feel as comfortable as possible more than made up for that.

Accessibility

Travelers with mobility issues may have a hard time navigating the stairs that lead up to each tent, or the climbs in and out small planes, all-terrain vehicles, and helicopters that are required to get around.

Courtesy of Wilderness Mokete

Going above and beyond

As one of Africa’s most renowned safari operators, Wilderness has long been a leader in conservation-led tourism. The group now oversees more than 60 safari camps in eight African countries, through which it helps protect more than six million acres of wild land. The Mokete camp is no exception—Wilderness’s “high-value, low-impact” presence in this former hunting concession helps safeguard one of northern Botswana’s most important seasonal migration corridors, which is also a critical sanctuary for birds such as the buzzards, falcons, and vultures that gyrate above the reserve in mind-boggling numbers.

The camp’s purposefully minimalist design, most of it set on stilts, touches lightly on the land. Electricity is generated through solar panels, while a reverse-osmosis filter system diminishes the need for plastic water bottles (each guest receives a refillable tumbler upon check-in). The kitchen draws on locally sourced and seasonal produce as much as possible, and waste is sorted on-site and processed in Maun.