Review of Chobe Chilwero, by Gemma Pitcher

After the rustic feel of the Okavango Delta lodges, Chobe Chilwero is something of a surprise. It’s situated just ten minutes from Kasane International Airport, for a start, and is just a few hundred metres from a tar road. Once inside the hotel grounds, however, the ‘bush’ feeling quickly reasserts itself. Shady green lawns slope gently down to the perimeter of the Chobe national park, with panoramic views across the shimmering Chobe River and into Namibia beyond.

Rather than a bush camp, Chobe Chilwero is a fully fledged and extremely luxurious boutique hotel, a regular winner of magazine awards. The architecture is magnificent, matching colonial structures with African decoration, such as a long, wide veranda held up with carved wooden poles in the form of stylised snakes.

The enormous bedroom cottages are beautifully decorated in rich coppers, terracottas and golds, each with a private garden shower and handcrafted sunken bathtub, complete with decadent bubble bath and candles. African artefacts are set into recesses in the walls, and glass patio doors lead out onto a shady private pavilion complete with table and chairs.

Game viewing here takes place by car or boat and centres around the Chobe River and the rich variety of mammals and birds that depend on its life-giving waters. Elephants are often here by the hundreds, swimming across between flat Namibian farmlands and the wooded sanctuary of the National Park.