Nxamaseri Lodge
(6 chalets) PO Box 159, Maun; tel: 678016 or 660778; fax: 678015; email: suzyl@sefofane.bw or nxa.lodge@info.bw
Nxamaseri Lodge stands beside the Nxamaseri Channel, in an area where, when water levels are high, there are plenty of open marshy floodplains covered with an apparently unblemished carpet of grass, and dotted with tiny palm islands. It's very like the Jao Flats, and is one of the Okavango's most beautiful corners.

Nxamaseri is a long-established camp that has sometime in the past been written off as 'just a fishing camp'. That is how it started: built in about 1980 by PJ and Barney Bestelink, who now run Okavango Horse Safaris. It is claimed that fly-fishing in the Delta was pioneered here, and certainly it remains an attraction for people who fish seriously. However, given that much of the magic of the Delta, and especially its wetter parts, are the birdlife and the scenery, then Nxamaseri's environment and attractions are at least comparable to most of the other water camps in the Delta.

Accommodation is in one of six chalets. Looking from the river, there's a double (most camps would call this a 'honeymoon') chalet on the right of the main lounge/dining area, and five twin-bedded chalets on the left. All are brick with thatch and, above a waist-high wall, one side is largely open to the river. (A rain-proof screen can be rolled down, but is seldom needed.) All have high thatched roofs and very simple, wooden furniture.

With a free flow of air from outside, a walk-in mosquito net protects the beds from insects. Each has an en-suite bathroom with flush toilet, hot shower and a washbasin. The camp has a generator running during the day, and that feeds batteries which supply power at night for two bedside lights in each chalet. They're very comfortable, but not luxurious.

The camp's central lounge/dining area is under a large thatched roof, with one side open to the river. Again, this is simple and comfortable though not ornate. What does strike one about the camp is the way that it's been built within a wonderfully thick and tropical patch of riverine vegetation. All around there are knobthorn (Acacia nigrescens), waterberry (Syzygium cordatum), sycamore fig (Ficus sycomorus) mangosteen (Garcinia livingstonei), jackalberries (Diospyros mespiliformis), sausage trees (Kigelia africana) and some of the most wonderfully contorting python vines (Cocculus hirsutus ) that you'll see anywhere.