Riding Safari: Enjoying The Okavango Delta While Riding Horses

Although families should check minimum age requirements for children at some camps, most activities in the Okavango Delta are suitable for anyone with a sense of adventure. Saddling up for a horse-riding safari, on the other hand, is not as simple or straightforward as lowering yourself into a mokoro or lacing up your boots for a walk. Only confident, experienced riders should consider a horseback safari. Spending between four and six hours a day in the saddle, you need to be capable of riding at all paces, posting a trot for at least ten minutes at a time, controlling your horse at a canter and galloping out of trouble.

That said, there’s no denying the sheer exhilaration of spurring an Arab thoroughbred through the sparkling floodplains of the Okavango, galloping alongside lechwe, giraffe and zebra. You will almost feel part of the herd as you splash through lagoons, mingling with elephants or pausing to watch the setting sun lay an amber path across the watery wilderness. African Horseback Safaris is based at Macatoo Camp on the western side of the Okavango Delta. A typical safari features daily rides as well as opportunities for game drives (day and night), bush walks, mokoro rides and overnight stays in a treehouse.

Okavango Horse Safaris has three camps in the delta. With six large en-suite tents strung along the Xudum River to the south-west of Chief’s Island, Kujwana Camp serves as a permanent base for P) and Barney Bestelink’s string of 6o-plus horses. Further north, Moklowane Camp overlooks plains that are often flooded three weeks before Kujwana, while a mobile fly-camp operates to the south-east.