On safari

Upon finishing Prince Harry’s memoir Spare, my takeaway was not how ghastly the British press and the palace are, but how much I yearned to go on a Botswanan safari. 

In the summer of 2016, H&M had their third date at the rustic-chic Meno a Kwena camp in the Makgadikgadi Pans National Park, sleeping in a canvas-sided suite. Instead, I headed to a hotel endorsed by authentic Hollywood royalty, the Chobe Game Lodge, where Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton wed for the second time. The ensuing news coverage was what first put Botswana on the jet-set map. Today, tourism is second only to diamonds when it comes to the African nation’s economy and Taylor was a glamorous advocate for both.

The Chobe Game Lodge recently celebrated its 50th birthday. It was built in a Moorish style in 1973 and it was at the owner’s personal invitation that the recently re-engaged duo arrived in Chobe National Park in October 1975. “That’s where I would like to be mated again,” Taylor had written in a love letter. “In the bush, around our kind.” 

As well as the raw beauty of the sandy plains and their wildlife, and the crimson sunrises and sunsets, there was the added advantage of the pair being untroubled by paparazzi and gawkers. Even if the papers had known where they were staying or what they were doing, I don’t fancy the paps’ chances because the Burtons’ nuptials took place on the banks of the Chobe River staring across to Namibia. The trees along the waterfront were less dense in 1975 and the lodge itself was two-thirds the size it is today, but one of the constants then and now are the 10-foot Nile crocodiles which can be seen from one’s breakfast table. There are dangerous beasts all around. A buffet dinner is interrupted by an invading honey badger. A fence like a badminton net surrounds the property to keep out elephants in case they trash the elevated wooden boardwalks, but nothing else. 

“About five to 15 baboons surrounded our suite,” Burton remembered. “It was a phenomenon never seen before. It would of course occur when Elizabeth was here… Quite scary.” A Tswana tribesman performed the stars’ wedding ceremony and it was “witnessed by one or two hippos” who emerged from the river, Taylor recalled. Once they’d said ‘I do’ again, they piled into a waiting Range Rover and began their safari honeymoon.

Chobe Game Lodge now offers 44 guest rooms, of which the Burtons’ cozy honeymoon suite is one, with a terrace, outdoor dining table and plunge pool overlooking the spot where the actors tied the knot. It remains the only permanent accommodation inside the 4,500-square-mile Chobe National Park, which boasts the largest population of elephants in Africa – an estimated 120,000. I spot hundreds just during the half-hour ride in from Kasane Airport (which also serves Victoria Falls – we’re at the crossroads of Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe). Over three days, exploring via electric Land Rover and river boat, I see plentiful hippos, zebra, giraffe, crocs, scores of bird species (such as the African fish eagle, the lilac-breasted roller and the national bird, the kori bustard), and several prides of lions. 

As well as ticking off wildlife in a spotting book which the lodge provides for each guest, I note down collective nouns of which I wasn’t aware, proffered by our guide, Elly Shanganya: a ‘twist’ of kudu (due to the deer-like animal’s corkscrew antlers); a ‘crash’ of rhinos; a ‘bloat’ of hippos; and my joint favourites, an ‘obstinacy’ of buffalo and an ‘implausibility’ of wildebeest. 

Elly is from Mmadinare, on Botswana’s eastern edge, and she was a pastry chef before becoming a Chobe Game Lodge guide in 2015 – one of the 20 ‘Chobe Angels’, believed to be the sole all-female safari guiding team on the continent. Her sister sponsored her training, knowing Elly’s passion for wildlife. “Every day, we see something different. We never get bored of the animals,” she says, though she adds that it wasn’t easy at first for these pioneering women. “Living in the bush, having to change a flat tyre; there were men who were saying we can’t handle the job. We just proved to them we can do this job very well, and still maintain our family. There are [still] few female guides, but more and more companies are starting to hire them. We get a lot of respect [now].”

The lodge was closed two years after Burton and Taylor’s visit due to the Rhodesian Bush War, but it reopened in 1984 under the ownership of Jonathan Gibson, a Botswana-based Brit whose Desert & Delta Safaris company still owns it today. It’s one of nine properties in this portfolio, including one I travel on to called Leroo La Tau, a short distance downstream from Harry and Meghan’s digs, where huge dazzles of zebra gather along the Boteti River.

The Burtons’ second elopement lasted just nine months but, half a century on from its creation, the Chobe Game Lodge still conjures magic and adventurous escape. In the bar, where Dickie and Liz would drink late into the night before shuffling pink-eyed towards their 5:30am game drives, hangs a photo of the couple looking at their happiest and most relaxed. They’d found a place to heal old wounds, if only temporarily. 

All-inclusive rates at Chobe Game Lodge begin at £900 per night. For more information, please contact info@thetraveldivision.com

Image Credits: Storrington Collective and GETTY