A visit to Botswana was an extra add-on to my trip and I am so glad I didn’t miss it! Botswana is a landlocked country with 70 percent of its territory being in the Kalahari Desert. One of the most sparsely populated countries in the world, it is also the world’s biggest diamond producing countries!

The Chobe River lies to the north providing a boundary between Botswana and Namibia. The national park has one of the world’s largest concentrations of African Elephants. My visit was to the Okavango Delta, one of the Seven Natural Wonders of South Africa and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Formed by Okavango River it is one of the world’s largest inland river deltas.

My stay was at a small lodge, appropriately called the Elephant Valley Lodge, which lies between the Chobe National Park and the Matetsi Wildlife Conservancy within the Kasane Forest Reserve. It featured a small watering hole that provided our nightly dinner entertainment. My focus was to see the elephants, but so many more species call the delta their home.