"Here’s the evidence,” said Solomon Kanyeto, my keen-eyed guide, pointing to fresh tracks on the road. “But where is the criminal?”

For two days we had been searching for leopards, in particular a female known as Amber, scanning every likely tree, chasing shadows in the grass. Now, against the early morning light the prints stood out sharply, like blue flowers in the Kalahari sand.

Somewhere nearby a red-billed francolin began to shriek its alarm call. But if Amber was hiding there she remained true to her kind – the shyest and most elusive of Africa’s big cats.

For once I did not mind. It was pleasure enough just to be back in the bush again, and returning to the Selinda Reserve, one of the hallowed places of Botswana, was reward enough.

In some parts of Africa it is hard to avoid the tourist convoys that set out each day in search of cats. But in Botswana they do things differently. Here, much of the bush is parcelled up in private concessions the size of small countries, each with no more than a couple of camps designed to appeal to the kind of visitors who are prepared to pay premium prices for exclusivity.

Such a place is Selinda: 1200 square kilometres of pristine wilderness between the Okavango and the Linyanti Swamp. There is only one way to get there –
a 45-minute flight by light aircraft from Maun, and once you have arrived you will never want to leave.

The area is used by upwards of 9000 elephants and is also a famous hotspot for predators. Visitors to Zibadianja, a popular little six-bed bush camp, enjoyed regular sightings of wild dogs and a lion pride notorious for preying on hippos.

Sadly, Zib, as its aficionados called it, was closed when the Selinda concession was taken over a couple of years ago. However, its new owners, who include Colin Bell, founder of Wilderness Safaris, and Derek and Beverley Joubert, two of Africa’s most distinguished wildlife photographers, have put in a stunning new eight-bed camp as luxurious as any in Africa.

Zarafa – its name comes from the Arabic word for the giraffe, meaning “the lovely one” – is a kind of Ritz-under-canvas with stupendous views across Zibadianja Lagoon. Each of its four guest tents comes with indoors-and-outdoors showers, a private plunge pool and – the most extravagant touch of all – a professional quality Canon 40D digital camera with a 400mm lens which you can use throughout your stay.

But Zarafa’s greatest luxury is its privacy. I stayed for three days, exploring the reserve from end to end, and never saw another vehicle. In early April the grass was tall and there was water everywhere – even in the mopane woodlands.

Giraffes watched us cruising across the floodplains and bateleur eagles rose on the thermals, describing immense parabolas across the sky. At one point we surprised a serval cat, and soon after encountered a herd of roan antelope led by a bull with trophy horns and a face like an African tribal mask.

In mid-morning we would stop for tea beside a waterhole where kudu and elephant came to drink and the sad piping cries of grey hornbills fell from the rain trees; and at the day’s end after sundowners we would drive back to camp with the spotlight on and nightjars fluttering like ghosts in its beam.

*****

While Zarafa is unashamedly designed for the rich, it is still possible to find more affordable safaris elsewhere in Botswana, and visitors with an adventurous disposition might do well to fly up to Shakawe on the banks of the Okavango Panhandle for a cruise on the Kubu Queen, an old-fashioned double-decker houseboat that boasts Prince Harry among its recent passengers.

The Panhandle – the 100km of the Okavango River between Namibia and the Delta – is a genuinely offbeat destination. Apart from hippos and sitatunga – a rare swamp-dwelling antelope that lives deep in the papyrus – there is little game. Instead you come for the birds, the fishing and the peaceful life of a mighty river where tourism is still caught in a last-century time warp.

At Shakawe the riverbanks are 3km apart, although the main channel is as wide as the Thames at Windsor, meandering in huge serpentine coils through a sea of papyrus, and the Kubu Queen is the most romantic way I know of exploring these magical African Everglades.

Originally a ferry plying between Mohembo and the Caprivi border, she sank in the late 1990s and lay half-submerged until five years ago, when Greg Thompson, a former professional hunter with a passion for angling, lovingly brought her back to life.

Today, with room for six guests at a squeeze, she chugs at a leisurely seven knots from one dreamy overnight mooring to the next, a floating safari lodge in all but name, towing an outboard-powered skiff for birding and fishing expeditions.

In April I spent three idyllic days on board, drifting downstream on the swirling current over amber depths so crystal clear I could see the bottom two fathoms below.
 

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During the day, leaving the Kubu Queen moored under the trees, we would take the skiff and head deeper into the secret world of the papyrus, past islands that echoed to the cries of fish eagles, nosing down narrow channels between the toppling reeds to look for otters among the lily ponds.

Every evening, when the painted reed frogs began to call like ice cubes clinking in a glass, our campfire was glowing on the riverbank and the smell of grilled steaks hung in the air, we would listen for the call of Pel’s fishing owl, a panhandle resident that attracts birders from all over the world.

*****

The flight from Maun to the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR) is shorter than the one to Shakawe, but the difference between the desert and the lush waterlands of the Okavango could not be greater.

Although it covers an area the size of New Mexico, the Central Kalahari has no permanent water. All through the long, hot African winter the grasses wither and wildlife suffers. Cruel mirages tremble in the heat-haze, creating the illusion of shimmering water as the land cries out for rain.

When at last the rains come, falling from December to March in the form of scattered thunderstorms, the Kalahari is transformed, from a land without hope to a paradise of greenery pulsating with life. And at the heart of it is Deception Valley.

Until last November this was one of Africa’s best-kept secrets, a place known only to bush-wise aficionados who could drive up from South Africa and sleep overnight in their camper vans. The only alternative was to stay outside the reserve at the nearest lodge, a good two hours’ drive away.

Then Wilderness Safaris arrived and set up their 14-bed Kalahari Plains Camp, close enough for guests to reach the valley when its desert lions and other predators are still mobile in the first hours after dawn.

The valley itself is the ghost of a river that ceased to flow in prehistoric times. Today what you see is a river of grass dotted with occasional islands of shady acacias, and it was here that two American zoologists, Mark and Delia Owens, camped for seven years and wrote Cry of the Kalahari, an African classic.

During the rains the valley’s sweet grasses attract huge herds of gemsbok and springbok, and in their wake come the carnivores: lions, cheetahs and the rare brown hyena, making this the best time to book in at Kalahari Plains.

When I arrived a dry-weather wind was blowing, heralding the end of the rains; but the desert still brimmed with life and colour. Golden orb spider webs glistened in the early morning sun. Pale chanting goshawks glared from every tree and monarch butterflies fluttered around our Land Cruiser as we hurried down to the valley.

The Kalahari is not like Mombo or Duba Plains in the Okavango Delta. In the desert you must work harder to track down your lions, but one of its full-on, black-maned pride males is worth a dozen lions anywhere else. And the one I encountered in Deception Valley was the finest I have ever seen.

Even when the lions have gone flat it is still a special place, and I loved watching the gemsbok moving gravely among the trees and the springbok bouncing over the plains as if filled with the joy of being alive.

Soon the drought would begin to bite. Already the valley was acquiring the bleached hues of winter as the grass turned to gold. But in those first few blissful April days I saw enough to convince me that few places in Africa are better suited for a green season safari.


Brian Jackman’s Botswana safari was arranged by Cazenove & Loyd (www.cazloyd.com).