A river that never reaches the sea, fed by rain from another country

Where the water comes from

The Okavango rises in the highlands of Angola. Rain falls there during the southern summer, gathers into the river system, and runs south-east across the Caprivi strip into northern Botswana.

There it meets the Kalahari sands and stops. Instead of continuing to a sea it spreads out into a vast alluvial fan — channels, lagoons, reedbeds, floodplains and thousands of islands — and evaporates and soaks away.

That is why it is an inland delta, and why permanent water sits in the middle of an otherwise dry region. The concentration of wildlife follows directly from it.

The lag, which is the whole point

The water does not arrive when it falls. It takes months to make the journey, so the flood generally reaches the upper Delta — the panhandle — in the early part of the year and then works its way down through the system over the following months.

The lower Delta typically peaks somewhere around the middle of the year. By then Botswana itself has been dry for months, and the two calendars are running in opposition.

Two calendars, opposed

The right-hand column is why Botswana’s high season is so firmly high: the water is up, the game is concentrated and the weather is comfortable, all at once.

Why it varies, and how much

It is a natural system fed by rainfall in another country, so both the timing and the volume of a flood differ from year to year. A strong flood pushes water into channels that stayed dry the previous season; a weak one leaves some areas accessible only by vehicle.

This is why we will not give you a date for water arriving at a specific camp, and why you should be wary of anybody who does. What is knowable is what is typical, what the current year is doing as it develops, and which camps are least sensitive to getting it wrong.

What the flood does to the animals

It moves them. Rising water pushes game off the floodplains and onto islands and higher ground, concentrating it; falling water opens new grazing and spreads it out again.

Red lechwe and sitatunga are adapted to the water and are found where it is. Elephant move through it comfortably. Predators follow the concentrations, which is why the best land-based game viewing in the Delta tends to come as the flood recedes and the ground dries.

The planning consequence

Choose the dates, then choose the camps — not the other way round. In most destinations that ordering is a mild preference. In the Okavango it decides what your days actually contain.