If you wish to really get away from it all, then this six-night journey through the remote corners of Botswana is for you.

Leroo La Tau and the Boteti River Safari

Makgadikgadi Pans

Leroo La Tau is based right in front of the Boteti River, so you will get to see plenty of wildlife grazing outside the lodge especially from June to November when the zebra migration passes through, often followed by a range of predators.

The main activity here revolves around game drives. Enjoy morning and afternoon drives in Makgadikgadi Pans National Park, which sits just across the river and attracts lots of wildlife. You may see lions, elephants, giraffes, hyenas, bushbucks, kudus and more roaming the grassland and scrubland – sometimes you might even spot a leopard or cheetah. On the afternoon trips, you will stop for snacks and sundowners as the sun sets over the Boteti River, painting the sky and river red.

When the water is high enough, motorised boat trips on the Boteti River are offered so you can witness all of the action. See zebras and elephants coming to drink, as well as other game such as impalas, kudus and giraffes. Being on the river gives you a unique perspective of the area.

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Sleep under the stars on the Makgadikgadi Salt Pan

Makgadikgadi Pans

In prehistoric times, the Makgadikgadi Salt Pan was one of the biggest inland lakes in the world – it’s now a huge collection of salt flats, covering more than 6,000 square miles in total. It looks like the moon, and you get the sense it just stretches on forever. A very special experience is to sleep out on the pans. The best thing about this experience is the silence of it all – there’s nobody else for miles around, and you get a real sense of the vastness of these sprawling pans.

Leroo La Tau have been offering daytrips here for a while, taking guests to the Nxai Pans, located around a four-hour drive from the lodge. A very special experience is to sleep out on the pans. The experience is offered free for anyone staying three nights or more in the dry season (July to the end of October) and you will be taken out in groups of up to six, although it can also be booked privately.

The sleep out is located around a five to six-hour drive from the lodge, so you will leave straight after breakfast, stopping for lunch on the way and arriving late afternoon. For an extra charge, 30-minute helicopter transfers are also available, which take guests over the pans to see these vast, glittering landscapes from above. On arrival, there are bedrolls laid out and a toilet – and then it’s just a huge stretch of white. A traditional bush dinner is prepared and served round an open fire with drinks as you watch the sun set over the pans. Then, when it gets dark, the stars come out. There’s no light pollution here so it feels like being in a real-life planetarium.

In the morning, you will be served a continental breakfast before making the journey back across the pans to the lodge, sharing stories from the experience. It does get cold, so bring plenty of layers.

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Helicopter Flight to Makgadikgadi Salt Pans

Makgadikgadi Pans

To truly experience the vastness of the Makgadikgadi Salt Pans, you need to take to the air. Whether you are transferring to your sleep out experience or want to see the dramatic landscapes we can arrange a variety of helicopter flights from Leroo La Tau.

Why not arrive in style to your sleep out experience with a 30-minute helicopter flight direct to the camp? Or take a helicopter scenic flight to take in the sheer expanse of the Makgadikgadi Pans wilderness region. Each month of the year offers different experiences. From the dusty tracks created by the thousands of zebras as they migrate along the Boteti River to the endless water basins lined with lush green islands.

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Witness the Zebra Migration from Leroo La Tau

Makgadikgadi Pans

Everyone knows about the Great Migration in the Serengeti, but not many people talk about Botswana’s migration. But every year, thousands of zebra and wildebeest make their way from the wetlands of the north to the pans to seek fresh grass, marking the second-biggest zebra migration in Africa.

The Boteti River is key to the annual zebra migration, making Leroo La Tau the perfect spot to witness Africa’s second-largest gathering of zebra and wildebeest. During the dry season, normally from June to November, the zebras migrate south to the river in search of water.

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Local Village Visit to Khumaga

Makgadikgadi Pans

At Leroo La Tau there is a big emphasis on supporting the local community which guests get a chance to see it in action. On the last day of your stay, on the way to the airstrip, you can be taken to the village of Khumaga, where most of the staff live. You will be warmly welcomed by the local residents and this experience offers a completely different side to the rest of your holiday, leaving you feeling culturally enriched and more knowledgeable about the region and its people.

Desert & Delta Safaris supports a number of initiatives which you can see on a tour around the village. Stop in a local shop and see the clinic – you might find yourself speaking to the shop owner or a nurse, hearing stories from the people that call the village home.

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Flying over Botswana's Forever Changing Landscape

Botswana

Flying over Botswana makes you appreciate just how vast it is. Seeing the Okavango Delta from above is an especially humbling experience – it’s so huge and unexplored. There’s the Savute region, Chobe National Park, the Boteti River and all the tiny villages and towns dotted in between. Every flight is unique. You can often see larger wildlife like elephants, buffaloes, hippos and giraffes or you might see lions and leopards, or floods arriving and storms building. The highlight is often landing on ‘bush’ airstrips that are often just gravel or grass in what feels like the middle of nowhere.

Safari Air launched in 1989 to whisk guests between Botswana’s remote Desert & Delta camps, and it’s an incredible way to see the country. The planes are based at Maun airport and depart whenever guests need them. Flights can be anything from 10 to 70 minutes, depending on routes. They’re light aircrafts – Cessna Airvans and Cessna Grand Caravans – fitting between six and 11 people, so they’re about the size of a small bus. You can see the pilot sitting in the front, which is an experience in itself. The pilot conducts a short briefing on the flight before passengers are flown to and in between each destination. For guests who’ve just flown into Johannesburg or Cape Town on a huge Boeing and then landed in Maun, it’s an especially exciting – sometimes overwhelming – experience.

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Safari in the Savute

Chobe National Park

Tucked away in the remote southwestern part of Chobe National Park is the Savute area. This fascinating region has been shaped by the unpredictability of the Savute Channel, sometimes remaining dry for years, other times the ancient waterways fill the Savute Marsh. Guests can experience its diverse wildlife and ancient terrain in a variety of ways.

The Savute is an amazing area for lions. You can head out on game drives into the vast, flat plains surrounding your lodge and spot their sandy coloured bodies in huge numbers of twenty or thirty, prowling the savanna in search of prey. You may also see other predators like leopard and cheetah that reside in the hilly terrain.

Visit the corridor of huge baobab trees. Their trunks are three times an average arm span and as you sip on a gin and tonic while admiring these ancient giants as the sun slowly sets, it's the perfect Instagram moment. If you’re feeling energetic you can climb the nearby hill to observe San Bushmen paintings which date back over 1,500 years old before returning to your lodge for star gazing.

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