Abu Camp

no longer home to habituated elephants

Abu Camp is located in the Abu Concession in the Okavango Delta area of northern Botswana.

The camp is set in a grove of beautiful knobthorn acacia trees to the north-east of the concession, with views out over a permanent lagoon and broad grasslands which become flooded during high water May-Sep.

The main building here comprises very chic lounge and dining areas, with a separate building containing an impressive library where meals can also be taken, all leading out to a small swimming pool deck and lovely waterfront campfire. There is also a small gym and even an enormous pizza oven.

One aspect we always appreciate is the amount of wildlife that can come into camp. Here the most common sightings are baboons and vervet monkeys, as well as a good range of birdlife. At night hippos and wild elephants also often come wandering through.

Rooms

Guest accommodation at Abu Camp is in just six lavish tented suites, approached along a network of raised walkways. Entering through a heavy wooden doorway, the main bedroom is a very large space with an unusual domed canvas roof and open insect-screen walls, decorated in a mix of colonial and contemporary styles. The room is cooled by a substantial ceiling fan. A large inside bathroom has conventionally plumbed basins, shower and toilet. On the deck outside there is a large free-standing bath-tub and comfortable loungers from which to view the surrounding plains.

Activities

Abu Camp provides the following guided activities …

• Vehicle safari
• Mokoro canoe safari (Jun-Aug)
• Motorboat safari (May-Oct)
• Walking safari
• Night vehicle safari

When it comes to trip shapes and durations in Botswana, most visitors combine 2, 3 or 4 lodges by light aircraft over 6-12 nights, one or two of which will usually be here in Okavango Delta, combined with the Linyanti Waterfront and/or Makgadikgadi areas.

These trips are often done in combination with further nights at the Victoria Falls and/or down in the Cape.

The usual stay duration in this area is 3-4 nights.

Seasonality

The Abu Concession offers reasonably strong wildlife viewing year round, but with considerable seasonal variations.

During the May-Sep cool dry season, the area usually experiences a strong and reliable flood during, creating a lovely network of floodplains, drawing in good numbers of herbivores and their attendant predators.

The Oct-Dec period marks the transition between the peak of the dry season and the start of the rains, when temperatures and humidities can become uncomfortably high. Before the rains, wildlife viewing around the remaining waterholes is intense. Once significant rain falls the wildlife disperses fast and becomes much more difficult to find.

During the Jan-Apr main season, the bush is verdant and beautiful, the animals are well-fed and there’s lots of wildflowers and baby animals around. The camps are significantly discounted and become increasingly attractive as the conditions improve through the period.

Getting there

Abu Camp can only be accessed by light aircraft into the nearby airstrip, which has daily flight connections with all other camps in Okavango, Linyanti, the main airport at Maun (for connections to Central Kalahari, Nxai, Makgadikgadi and Johannesburg) and north to Kasane (for connections to Livingstone and Victoria Falls).

From the airstrip it is a drive of around 15 minutes through some pretty and varied scenery, notably forging a major channel during high water, to arrive at the camp itself.

usually combined with at least one other camp in Botswana