Eagle Island Lodge, a Belmond Safari (Botswana)

January 9, 2025

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Wednesday newsletters all the time function a lodge or flight assessment.

Final summer time, I loved one in every of my finest holidays ever, an ultra-luxe safari in Botswana. You may learn my journey experiences right here:

Right this moment: Assessment of Eagle Island Lodge, a Belmond Safari (Okavango Delta, Botswana)

Situated on a personal island surrounded by the Okavango Delta’s epic landscapes, Belmond Eagle Island Lodge is taken into account one of many final luxurious safari lodges in Botswana. Right here, visitors can silently glide previous hippos in canoe-like mekoros, take within the vastness of the Delta and see elephants, giraffes and zebras from above in a helicopter, go on a horse driving or motorboat safari, go to native villagers, or just calm down in the great thing about the lodge. Belmond’s flagship safari lodge reopened in November 2015 after a ten month rebuild that took each the lodge’s design and environmental credentials to a brand new degree. Every of the 12 spacious and light-filled deluxe tented rooms has its personal plunge pool and deck, positioned in such a method that when visitors retire to their rooms they’re afforded whole privateness and may see no indicators of human life – solely Botswana’s distinctive animals and birds.

Have you ever ever stayed at Eagle Island Lodge, a Belmond Safari? If that’s the case, what was your expertise? Go away a remark.

Eagle Island Lodge, a Belmond Safari options in my high 10 checklist of the finest safari lodges in Botswana.

On this assessment (extra data and photographs under my YouTube video):

PROS & THINGS I LIKE

The one thousandth UNESCO World Heritage Website and one of many seven pure wonders of the world, the Okavango Delta in northwest Botswana is an oasis within the Kalahari desert. The most important inland delta on the planet, this uncommon ecosystem is residence to a number of the world’s most endangered animals and a few of Africa’s most luxurious lodges. A stone’s throw from the safari lodge, limitless floodplains, pristine waterways and considerable meals entice elephants, buffalo, antelope and different giant herds, all adopted intently by the attentive eye of the infamous African predators. When the Delta’s flooded, normally between Might and October, the water wonderland involves life and is finest explored by boat. Within the different months, the main target is extra on land-based actions together with nature walks, village visits and exhilarating horseback & helicopter safaris.

Xaxaba Island, the house of Belmond Eagle Island Lodge, was one of many first camps within the Okavango Delta within the early 1900s. As explorers and crocodile hunters alike have been drawn to the Delta, the Wilmot household established Xaxaba, which suggests “island of tall timber”, as the primary everlasting safari camp within the space. When the household determined to alter the lodge to a different island a brief method upstream in 1975 they took the Xaxaba identify with them. After altering palms to the Zimbabwean couple Paul and Penny Rawson, Xaxaba turned a part of the Belmond portfolio in 1993, earlier than altering its identify to Eagle Island Camp in 2000, and eventually changing into Belmond Eagle Island Lodge in April 2014. After a ten-month closure and virtually whole rebuild, since reopening in November 2015, the lodge ranks among the many most well-known safari lodges within the nation, providing a luxurious tented safari expertise.

After arriving by bush aircraft on the lodge’s non-public airstrip, visitors are taken by safari automobile to Eagle Island Lodge’s most important pavilion, which is only a 5 min drive from the airstrip. Housing a lounge and eating space, the pavilion’s design was impressed by the huge ant nests which might be discovered within the space, with natural shapes rising from the bottom and bending across the camp’s historic timber. Within the lounge visitors can calm down by a big hearth and artisanal fashion bar produced from regionally sourced timber, whereas within the eating space they’ll collect across the open-style kitchen and pizza oven at meal occasions. Each areas have gorgeous Delta views, and are linked by an exterior deck. The design incorporates a white, brown and brilliant yellow color scheme, impressed by the chook the lodge is known as after. In entrance of the primary pavilion is an open camp, an ideal setting to swap safari tales with fellow visitors beneath a blanket of stars.

Every of the 12 spacious deluxe tented rooms has its personal plunge pool and deck. Housed on raised wood platforms and shaded by conventional African thatched roofs, the centerpiece of the room is an outsized mattress that appears out over the Delta. The bizarre gray mosquito netting makes for simpler viewing of animals at evening. Botswana’s mining custom impressed the copper end of the mattress heads; every one perforated with tiny holes in a water lily sample that enables mild to filter by means of and flicker on the mattress. The open-plan lavatory is supplied with a free-standing bathtub, two wash basins, and indoor and outside showers. Elegant echoes of colonial camp days are felt all through, together with hand-stitched leather-based pockets for binoculars on custom-designed tables and a mini bar that appears like an explorer’s toolbox and divulges drawers and hidden cabinets filled with complimentary drinks and visitor facilities.

Stays at Belmond Eagle Island Lodge embody full board with breakfast, lunch and dinner together with drinks together with alcohol (some premium manufacturers and imported champagnes come at a further price). Rotating menus are supplied with choices starting from mild and wholesome to indulgent; particular dietary requests might be catered for. Most meals are served in the primary pavilion, though the lodge employees may arrange a romantic desk on the non-public deck of your room for a extra non-public eating expertise. On chosen nights, the lodge additionally gives bush picnics between the morning and afternoon safari actions, in addition to barbeque dinners across the campfire. Previous to dinner, visitors may have an aperitif within the Fish Eagle Bar, which is housed in a small hut in entrance of the primary pavilion; the bar is known as after the majestic chook of prey that swoops to catch fish in close by waters.

Eagle Island Lodge is without doubt one of the finest lodges within the Delta to take a helicopter flight, for the reason that Delta’s largest helicopter tour firm – Helicopter Horizons – has a base close to the lodge. Out on the water, visitors can really feel the way in which that the Delta flows, however within the air they’ll see simply how huge the system is, how the channels match collectively, and the way the animals are unfold out over islands and within the water itself. After being safely strapped right into a helicopter with no doorways, visitors can really feel the wind on their face, have uninterrupted views of the panorama and animals under them, and take pictures with out reflections in home windows. Helicopter excursions might be blended with champagne lunches on islands, with fishing journeys in the course of the fishing season, and with a horseback driving safari. These half- or full-day excursions begin with a game-viewing flight over channels and islands, earlier than reaching the stables on the border of the Moremi Recreation Reserve.

When Belmond Eagle Island Lodge was rebuilt in 2014, it was designed with the lightest footprint and finest sustainability practices in thoughts. Throughout renovations concrete buildings from the previous lodge have been demolished and 1350 tons of concrete rubble faraway from the realm. Whereas the previous lodge relied on diesel powered turbines, the brand new lodge has round 850 photo voltaic panels in a 210kWp Photograph Voltaic (PV) system, saving an estimated 144,000 litres of diesel a yr. Round 30,000 liters of water a day are used on the lodge however because of the Delta, Belmond is ready to keep away from transporting provides onto the positioning. Water is pumped in from the Kavango River throughout excessive water intervals and from a borehole in occasions of low water. This goes by means of a therapy plant involving a collection of settling tanks, multi sand filters, carbon filters and ozone. A reverse osmosis system then processes the handled water for ingesting and cooking, and visitors are given reusable bottles to refill.

Eagle Island Lodge belongs to the portfolio of the Belmond Lodge Group fomerly often known as Orient Categorical till its rebranding in 2014. Belmond is a lodge and leisure firm that manages a ultraluxe assortment of 49 iconic motels, trains and river cruises in 24 international locations, bringing collectively a number of the world’s most sensational journeys and locations. It ranks among the many most unique lodge manufacturers on this planet. With Belmond, you’ll be able to keep in timeless motels in Venice, Rio and St. Petersburg, embrace the spirit of journey at Machu Picchu or Angkor Wat, glide alongside the rails by means of the Swiss Alps, soar throughout the Andes, or discover the mystifying rivers of Myanmar. In 2018, Belmond was acquired by LVMH (‘Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy’), the proprietor of manufacturers like Christian Dior, Louis Vuitton and Fendi.

For the complete Botswana nature expertise, Belmond Eagle Island Lodge might be mixed with stays at Belmond’s different luxurious Botswana lodge: Savute Elephant Lodge, a Belmond Safari within the Chobe Nationwide Park. The guts of essentially the most biologically numerous recreation reserve in Botswana, the Savute is the place the BBC and Nationwide Geographic have captured a few of their finest wildlife documentary footage and the place visitors can watch the reside wildlife present on daily basis and evening. At Belmond Savute Elephant Lodge, visitors can exit on safari each morning and afternoon, however probably the most memorable experiences comes from merely sitting on the non-public deck of their tented room as a parade of elephants walks by, mere metres away. The 12 tented rooms are shaded by conventional thatched roofs and constructed on raised wood platforms for higher viewing over the Savute. Belmond Savute Elephant Lodge is a 50 min bush flight from Belmond Eagle Island Lodge.

CONS & THINGS TO KNOW

Belmond Eage Island Lodge is finest visited in the course of the Okavango Delta’s annual flood (June to September), when water from Angola makes its method by means of the delta from the north to the south. That is when wild animals are drawn to remaining sources of water and thus simply seen. When the flood recedes (usually between October and Might), recreation viewing might be patchy and disappointing (however that’s the case for many lodges within the Okavango Delta that lack a everlasting water physique close by).

Belmond Eagle Island Lodge is positioned within the southern parth of the Okavango Delta, and is without doubt one of the final areas to get flooded in the course of the annual flood. Sadly, over the previous years, local weather change has affected the Okavango Delta, with extended droughts and diminished rainfall in Angola, resulting in decrease water ranges within the delta – particularly the southern space the place the lodge is positioned – and affecting animal life. For instance, I visited the lodge on the finish of June – when the annual flood is meant to be in full swung – however the water ranges across the lodge have been fairly low and the complete space regarded very dry. That stated, regardless of the dry situations, the wildlife viewing across the scarcer water was distinctive (with unbelievable leopard and lion actions, as you’ll be able to see in my YouTube video).

Though Eagle Island Lodge lacks a devoted spa facility, a choice of therapies might be given by therapists within the room (indoor or outside) or in a small spa room proper subsequent to the primary pavilion. Africology therapies are used, with potent pure elements reminiscent of hydrating aloe ferox, mineralrich inexperienced rooibos and marula, hailed by the sweetness business as a “miracle oil”.

Belmond Eagle Island Lodge is not fenced off, so visitors are required to be vigilant always. Leopards, lions, buffalos, and elephants are current within the Okavango Delta, and there’s no bodily obstacle to them coming into the realm across the lodge. Certainly not are visitors allowed to stroll across the lodge at evening, except accompanied by a employees member. Don’t worry although because it’s all a part of the thrill of being immersed in a real African safari.

Belmond Eagle Island Lodge can solely be reached by small plane, both from Maun (30 min flight) or from one other camp in Botswana. The considered flying in a small one-engine aircraft could make some vacationers – together with myself – nervous. That stated, the flight itself is spectacular and gives pretty views of the delta, with wildlife gathering or galloping under. Belmond Safaris makes use of Mack Air a 3rd occasion for the flights between its lodges. Since its launch in 1994, Mack Air hasgrown to turn into probably the most superior air constitution firms in Southern Africa. The present fleet of Mack Air is kind of fashionable and consists of 19 Cessna Grand Caravan EXs and three Cessna 206 Stationairs.

Malaria is widespread within the northern components of Botswana such because the Okavango Delta (the place Belmond Eage Island Lodge is positioned) and Chobe Nationwide Park, significantly throughout or after wet season from November to April. Medicines can be utilized to forestall the probabilities of contracting malaria. For recommendation on the usage of any malaria prophylaxis, it’s essential contact the well being authorities or your native journey clinic previous to your travels. Along with any prophylactics, the next mitigation measures are really helpful: cowl your arms, legs and toes within the evenings and apply a mosquito repellent containing DEET.

MY VERDICT

Location: 9/10
Design: 8/10
Pool: 8/10 (solely non-public plunge swimming pools)
Rooms: 8/10
Meals: 8/10
Breakfast: 8/10
Spa: 8/10 (solely in-room therapies)
Service: 9/10
Wow issue: 8/10
Worth for cash: 8/10
Total expertise: superb 8,2/10

TIPS FOR FUTURE GUESTS & SAVE MONEY

Get monetary savings: get complimentary VIP perks when reserving Belmond Safaris through Virtuoso:
- Room improve
- Every day breakfast
- Early check-in
- Late check-out
- A non-public eating expertise for as much as two visitors as soon as throughout keep, served on the balcony of your room or at a personal location inside the lodge
- Stays of 6+ nights can even obtain a wellness credit score for two visitors, as soon as throughout their keep, relevant in direction of a 60-minute therapy).

Get monetary savings: get complimentary VIP perks when reserving Belmond Safaris through Belmond Bellini Membership:
- VIP welcome treats with an area style
- Buffet or full breakfast for two each day
- Complimentary improve primarily based on availability at time of check-in
- As much as $200 USD lodge credit score per keep ($200 per keep for choose suites; $90 per keep for rooms)
- Complimentary WI-FI entry

Get monetary savings: learn right here my ideas for getting the perfect deal at a luxurious lodge of the Belmond Lodge Group (and/or obtain many free perks).

Learn my ideas for getting ready your journey in time.

BEST TIME TO VISIT

Eagle Island Lodge, a Belmond Safari gives year-round safari actions. Whereas every season brings a novel attraction, wildlife numbers are concentrated between June and October. These drier months additionally enable for seasonal recreation drive alternatives.

The very best time to go to the Okavango Delta is in the course of the dry season from June to September. Though referred to as the ‘dry season’, the water ranges of the Okavango Delta are at their highest level in these months because the flood waters are arriving from Angola, with animals flocking to the waters from the dry hinterland. That is additionally when many camps can provide water actions (e.g. boat rides, mokoro excursions). Going by the rule of thumb, water within the Delta begins to stream in June (when it arrives from the Angolan Highlands), whereas by the top of August, many of the water has handed by means of the Delta and water ranges begin to drop once more.
In the summertime months (December to February), the temperatures are hovering and thundershowers are frequent. Throughout this time of the yr, some areas within the delta turn into waterlogged, making highway journey difficult and airstrips trickier to traverse. That stated, glorious recreation viewing might be loved in the summertime months too, in the best areas with good resident recreation and everlasting water channels. Additionally, if you’re a birder, the perfect time to go to the Okavango Delta is mostly in the course of the summer time months when the Okavango is bursting with resident and migratory birds.

HOW TO GET THERE

Eagle Island Lodge, a Belmond Safari can solely be accessed by mild plane into the close by airstrip, which has each day flight connections with different camps in Okavango, Chobe, Maun Airport (which is the primary vacationer getaway to Botswana) and north to Kasane (for connections to Livingstone and Victoria Falls). Flight tim from Maun to the lodge is 20 minutes and Belmond takes care of reserving all transfers and flight.

PHOTOS

Under is a choice of my photographs of Eagle Island Lodge, a Belmond Safari. To view extra photographs (together with meals and safari actions), click on right here.