Chobe Water Villas take 'getting away from it all' to a luxurious new level

Elizabeth Sleith is wowed by the spectacular setting and sophisticated style of this remote lodge in Namibia

09 December 2018 - 00:00 By Elizabeth Sleith

It's a weird little wodge of land, the Caprivi Strip. Part of Namibia, and now officially called the Zambezi Region, it's a 450km panhandle that juts out from the northeast of the country towards Zimbabwe, bordered by Botswana to the south, and Angola and Zambia to the north.
Feel free to snicker at its origin tale, which starts with a rather laughable error: the failure of some poor sod to consult a map. In 1890, when Germany acquired it in a trade with Britain, hearts fluttered because it ended at the Zambezi River. The Germans thought it would provide a lucrative short-cut to the Indian Ocean.
As it turned out, there was a small glitch - by some measures the largest glitch in the world: 65km downriver is a 108m dead drop in the Zambezi, which no ship could ever handle. You probably know it as Victoria Falls.
So shame, the weird wodge failed to deliver the riches of which its owners dreamed. Their loss is a traveller's gain, since its remote and wild location today makes it a dream spot for a lodge, namely the Chobe Water Villas. These 16 free-standing chalets sit alone on the edge of a 150km2 conservancy on the Namibian banks of the Chobe River, at the eastern edge of the strip. Directly across from them lies Botswana's famed Chobe National Park...

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