Jao vs. Vumbura Plains?
 

We have a choice of staying at either Jao or Vumbura Plains in mid-April for 3 nights. I know that both camps will be pretty wet during this time, and we are heading to Little Mombo. I would appreciate any advise on which concession to consider. It seems like birding is better at Jao? Neither my husband nor I are into birds but probably because we've never had the opportunity.

MsPiggy, have you ever been to a 'wet' camp before? The Mekoro experience is something one should do in the Delta, if possible, and this isn't available at Vumbura. If I remember correctly, the Vumbura Plains airstrip was partially covered with water until mid July last year, and Sefofane had to purchase a unique plane that could do short takeoffs and landings. Kind of crazy.

Jao is a special place, and if you aren't into birds at all I think I would probably recommend Vumbura Plains. Both are wonderful, though.

Andy,

Vumbura plains is also offering a mokoro experience. Have a look at the WS website.

You can motor boat, fish, and mokoro at Vumbura Plains and Jao. It was offered at both camps when I was at both of them last May. Jao will be almost impossible to have any land based game drive unless you boat over to Tubu Tree for a morning or afternoon. Vumbura Plains will have space to drive but you will spend a lot of time getting to and from these areas each day through the flood plains (if the rains so far this season keep up). Like I told you before (although you did not acknowledge and started a new thread instead) - just go to one of these two camps given the overall parameters of the trip you laid out elsewhere on this forum.

MsPiggy - not sure why you are so stuck on Premier Camps? Also, why aren't you considering a camp in the Linyanti like I suggested before (Duma Tau, Savuti) instead of two very waterlogged camps. Also - three days at Mombo is too much. No nights drives, no sundowners, land based activities only and a huge premium. Two nights is enough.

Packing for Italy? If you spend a night at the Intercontinental in Johannesburg at the airport they will story your luggage for free while you go to Botswana. Or you can use the service inside the airport.

Craig Beal - owner - Travel Beyond

well, there you have it! I haven't done a mokoro ride at Vumbura, because I have done them in other locations. Do they use the same boats as Little Vumbura?

Hi Craig,

Actually, I did add Savuti for 2 nights per your recommendation. Sorry I didn't respond or update the itinerary after we made the change.

I made a specific thread about Jao vs. Vumbura camps because I just couldn't decide between the two camps. Jao came highly recommended from two people who've been there but during different times, and I've always wanted to stay at Jao so I'm having hard time letting it go.

We were settled on Vumbura until I realized that Vumbura is a much bigger concession than Jao, and Little Vumbura wasn't available for consecutive nights for the nights we wanted.

Planning this trip is much harder than planning a trip to Europe or Asia!

Per Craig's suggestion, I would also take a look at Duma Tau. It will likely be a better location for wildlife during the time that you are going.

MsPiggy - I just had a group of 14 people "take over" Jao last week for three days or Wattled Crane viweing. They said it was the most luxurious camp they have ever been too (incidentally the birding was excellent as well). Many of the people had been to Africa many times and all are world travelers. You really can't go wrong with Jao or Vumbura but the rooms at Jao are fantastic (if it is a nice room you are after).

Vumbura Plains is a bigger concession but it is a long drive to many parts of the concession and it is sometimes impossible to make it to some of the dryland (in April) in the time typically allocated for morning and afternoon activities.

Craig Beal - owner - Travel Beyond
Craig Beal - owner - Travel Beyond

Hi Criag,

I just saw a post on Safaritalk by a visitor who was in the Okavango last week - looks like this year's floods are super early and is going to be a real monstor. Airstrips are already flooded under water and we are still in January.... apparently, lots of water around.

Fingers crossed...

I spoke to a friend of mine with Wilderness Safaris on Friday. Their monitoring point is in the pan handle and they measure volumetric flow rate of the river as it comes into the Detla. It is an all time record for each day of the year so far. Can't wait to see what happens.

Craig Beal - owner - Travel Beyond

Not sure what the record flood means for our trip. Does it mean that the region will be under water and the concessions as well? DumaTau and Savuti as well?

Hard to tell about the overall flood at this point in time - a lot of the rainy season still remains. The rains in the Angolan highlands supposedly started really early this year. Local rainfall in Northern Bots started a bit late, but, has been brutal for a few weeks ....... really hard to tell at this point in the season as to overall impact. At current rate, I would guess MEGAFLOOD with a lot of the concessions being severely WET.

DumaTau etc etc., even the Linyanti concessions will have some wet areas - i.e., in their flood plains. Areas do get water from the various channels of the Linyanti/Kwando/Selinda spillway systems - which are also impacted with flooding from the source.

We were not into birding until we experienced birding on safari and were instantly hooked - we love seeing all manner of wildlife from the large to the very small, including tiny reed frogs, little dik dik, porcupines, owls and all kinds of critters.

Jao is very close to Jacana and Tubu Tree camps - we sayed at both in 2004 and loved them utterly.

We passed Jao regularly, as it really is very close to Jacana. For us, we just weren't interested in spa treatments and so on, so we preferred the smaller Jacana camp, one of our favourites.

We did also visit Little Mombo on that trip, having been before a few years earlier. We chose it for the wildlife not the luxury, and generally prefer the smaller camps as they are perfectly luxurious and charming and comfortable for us.

I certainly would not miss the chance to spend a few days on water, you get a different view of the Delta and experience the much smaller things and sounds.

As for Mombo, 3 days is fine, given that you'll lose time on first day and last travelling. So it's only 2 full days.

Compared to previous years, picking out the right moment to visit the delta has become a burden especially with excessive rains/floods and massive fires at the end of the dry season.

A former friend of mine said the following: The Safari Photographer has decided, Botswana will be a green season destination only!!!!!

Honestly speaking, I would prefer to go on safari to other countries until Northern Botswana is hit by a dry spill again.

As a first time visitor, you can't really compare and Botswana is certainly overhyped these days.

It is a challenging time, for sure. There are always silver linings, though, and without the floods last year I would have never watched an entire wild dog chase and subsequent kill, as a small pack of dogs used the Savuti channel (near Savuti Camp) as a barrier to flush their prey into. At the beginning and end of all of the chaos, we watched dogs swim across the channel for their prey. This image doesn't do it justice, but you get the idea:

http://bit.ly/gAQLCs

Andy, if I look back at my travels to Botswana, sightings were definitely much better during the drier period.

It's not that you can't have good or fantastic sightings now but current conditions are far less favourable now.

If you look at f.e. May - July (shoulder season - high season), your land activities will be seriously restricted due to high water levels.

Just a few camps that come to mind: Jao - Kwetsani - Kwara - Little Kwara - Little Vumbura - Vumbura Plains - Mapula - Khwai river lodge - Duba plains - Xigera - Chief's camp - Sandibe - Shinde.

Big parts of Moremi Game Reserve will also be inaccessible.

You visited Chitabe last year and I would be very surprised if you made it to the Moremi border (Gomoti).

Erratic rainfall during wintertime and the abundance of water around also have the effect that game is much more dispersed than it was f.e. a decade ago.

It's still a great place to visit. But in my opinion, one should focus more on an overall experience.

I would definitely prefer to go to the Linyanti/Kwando instead of the Okavango delta (probably between mid July - mid August) as the big fires aren't normally burning yet. The Savuti marsh (part of a national park) wouldn't appeal that much to me because of the number of vehicles around.

I've been interested in this thread, because we are planning a trip to Botswana in 2012.

Assuming that the current weather patterns continue (I think I read somewhere, that the weather often comes in 10 year cycles) would early September still be too wet? We were thinking of Little Vumbura (for water and land activites), Mombo Camp, and King's Pool Camp. Can the floods be so bad that Mombo and King's Pool will be inundated?

Mombo and Kings Pool were 100% fine during the worst floods ever (May 2010). I was at both camps during that month. A nice thing to do at Kings Pool is drive down the Eastern Edge of the swamp and that was the only thing we could not do.

September (along with August) is the best month of the year IMO and also one of the dryest as the rains usually stop in March and don't start until November.

Craig Beal - owner - Travel Beyond

We spent three nights at Little Mombo and didn't think it was too long. Have sundowners been discontinued there? Our interest was animals, not luxury, and it didn't disappoint, though the food was mediocre.

Nothing really has been text book in recent times. A couple years ago, mid-end September the rains had already started. Rains also continued into almost June on and off - this is what caused all the massive flooding.

Bottom line, Africa won't disappoint. You are going to have a great time.