Into the Wild: Safari Honeymoons

There is something so inherently romantic about the idea of a safari.

Botswana

 While you’ve probably encountered some runway traffic at one point or another, chances are you’ve never looked out the window to find that giraffes were the cause. But there’s a first time for everything, and a giraffe-filled airstrip is just the intro to the firsts you’ll likely experience in Botswana’s Okavango Delta — one of the planet’s largest and most wildlife-rich inland water systems.

Once you touch down in Maun, the full-sized jets that got you there (generally, via Johannesburg) will become a thing of the past, and station wagonsized bush planes your new ride. Or at least the ride that shuttles you between remote African lodges — Orient Express Khwai River Lodge and Orient Express Eagle Island Camp being two of the most romantic (think four-poster beds draped in the requisite, gauzy mosquito netting, candlelit dinners on private decks and total quiet, with the exception of some very chatty hippos).

hippo

Photo Credit: Abbie Kozolchyk

Arrayed along the edge of a forest, Khwai River Lodge’s elevated, thatch-roofed tents let you survey the floodplains of the Moremi Wildlife Reserve: a massive, unfenced swath that allows for the free movement of the Big Five — lion, leopard, elephant, buffalo and rhino — as well as the copious numbers of hippos in the area.

lion

Photo Credit: Abbie Kozolchyk

However lovely the wildlife-gazing may be from your hammock though, the twice-daily game drives provide the best animal action around. True, you’ll need to get up obscenely early for the first one, but the pre-breakfast delivery of fresh pastries and coffee (and the hours you’ll have to lounge in the afternoon) go a long way toward offsetting the 5- to 6 a.m. wakeup knock. Bouncing around the delta’s dirt paths in your open 4x4, you have excellent chances of seeing not only the aforementioned marquee creatures — often in large numbers — but the many varieties of antelope and birds that populate the area, as well as a multitude of giraffes.

giraffes

Photo Credit: Abbie Kozolchyk

Though Eagle Island Camp features some of the same characters — most notably, loads of hippos —it does so in a different context: The camp is totally, gloriously water-locked. Occupying secluded Xaxaba island and overlooking a flora- and fauna-filled lagoon, the place is best experienced on foot or by traditional makoro (canoe). Unless, of course, you hire an open-sided helicopter to zip you around the area. While the chopper’s expansive, shimmery, animal-dotted views are undeniably amazing, their gorgeousness is rivaled by any given sunset you take in from the lodge’s lounge. When you’re sitting at the Fish Eagle Bar — on its own little island just off the main camp — and the late afternoon light hits the lilac-breasted rollers (birds) and malachite kingfishers just so, you’ll think you’ve died and gone to honeymoon heaven (room rates start at about $1,900 a night and include game drives, meals, alcoholic beverages, laundry service, park fees, and more; orient-express.com). 

elephants

Photo Credit: Abbie Kozolchyk

—Abbie Kozolchyk

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