>1978 THE SAVUTI CHANNEL
The Savuti Channel is, to me, the most exciting place in all of Chobe. It flows out of the Linyanti Swamp via the Zibadianja Lagoon and then follows a course of almost 100 km through a sea of Kalahari sand, which it has turned into a paradise of undulating woodland.
Eventually – and it is slowgoing – the water empties into the 108 km² Savuti Marsh in the Mababe Depression. The marsh was once a wetland, but it has always been subject to the whims of the channel's flow. It remains largely grassland devoid of woody species like camel thorn trees.
I first visited Savuti (also spelled Savute) back in 1978 and watched in amazement how the channel emptied its life-giving waters into the northern part of the marsh. It was teeming with game like zebra, blue wildebeest, tsessebe, buffalo, elephant, impala and giraffe. Nothing had prepared me for this spectacle!
In the Bayei dialect, Savuti means “unclear” – which may well allude to the enigmatic nature of the channel's flow, or to its mysterious disappearance into the Savuti Marsh where the water finally vanishes.
1980 ZIBADIANJA LAGOON
At the southern outflow of the Zibadianja Lagoon, you'd find the most incredible concentration of hippos – as can be seen from this
