Moremi Journals
Moremi Travel Guide

Moremi is considered by many to be the most beautiful reserve in Africa - an opinion that is difficult to dispute after spending extended time in the area.

Moremi Journals: Echoes of Creation

Moremi Journals: July 17: 'The drive from Xaxanaxa to Khwai is always special and with names such as Paradise Pools and Lechwe Plains, and with mopane and rain tree forests on route, it can only be something out of the ordinary. At times flocks of birds will appear on the floodplains or a herd of lechwe will splash through the water and at other times the sweet scent of the purple-white flowers of the rain tree will fill the senses.

'Moremi is about light and colour and nowhere in Africa are these two aspects so dramatically illustrated, no matter what the season. I often found it impossible to describe the beauty of a place where each moment seems to have been a model for the Creation of the earth'.

The Seat of Creation

Set in the heart of the Okavango Delta Moremi is a place of lagoons, channels, floodplains, forests and open grassland - and exceptional wildlife interactions.

With a number of very distinctive regions Moremi provides a varied and dramatic look at the African wilderness. Permanent water and deep lagoons together with dry savannah regions allow for species such as the water dependant Sitatunga and the arid-surviving steenbok to appear on the same wildlife checklist.

Moremi Journals: May 27 before midnight: 'I was lying awake listening to the Moremi night. A lion roared in the distance, answered by one closer to the camp. After a while of silence the sound of excited hyenas indicates a dispute of sorts. The hyenas carry on for a few minutes before the silence descends again, broken occasionally by the splash of night wanderers on the flooded plains'.

Around first light: 'There must be a kill. The lions and hyenas are squabbling over something through a cacophony of whoops, whelps and growls. The hyenas seemed to be standing their ground ....

I saw the first tinges of light creeping over the treeline and got to thinking of the wonderful extremes of places such as Moremi - for with the first light the aching beauty of the area will be revealed. Moremi days belong to the beauty of creation while the nights belong to the fierce and primeval beauty of the wilderness'.

By Leigh Kemp
Botswana Safari Tours and Game Lodges
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