Two thatched chalets on a wooded bank above the Boteti River, with elephants and zebra gathered on the dry riverbed below

Botswana  ·  Makgadikgadi Pans

Leroo La Tau

The river brings the animals to you; you simply need to be sitting on the right bank when it does.

Leroo La Tau stands on the western bank of the Boteti River, which forms the boundary of the Makgadikgadi Pans National Park in Botswana. That geography is the entire story. The park is arid, and the Boteti is its lifeline; where there is water, there is wildlife, and the lodge sits on the water.

The Boteti is also a critical link in the annual zebra migration. When the herds are on the river, the whole valley becomes a very busy place. The zebra do not so much arrive as accumulate, and the pace of everything shifts to match them.

Aerial view of the Boteti River: a chalet on the western bank at left, zebra herds crossing the water and scattered across the pale floodplain
The river from above, zebra crossing
There is a particular satisfaction in a lodge that has understood its river.

There is a particular satisfaction in a lodge that has understood its river. Rather than driving out to find the wildlife, you find that the wildlife has an appointment with the water, and that your deck happens to overlook the meeting place.

For a base from which to explore this unusual piece of Botswana, it would be hard to place a lodge better. The river brings the animals to you; you simply need to be sitting on the right bank when it does.

01

The lodge

The lodge seen from across the river: a thatched main building and deck on the high bank, a hide set into the vegetation below
The lodge from the far bank
Dining room under thatch with woven pendant lamps, a turquoise wall hung with maps and baskets, and a long white sideboard
The dining room
Two guests at the deck rail under a pole roof, one with binoculars, looking down on zebra and elephant along the river
From the deck

02

On the river

A guide and a guest with drinks beside a game-drive vehicle as the sun sets over the pans
Sundowners
A lioness walking through golden light, a game-drive vehicle and its passengers blurred behind her
Lioness, late light
A herd of zebra drinking in a line at the edge of the Boteti River, an egret standing in the reeds behind them
Zebra at the Boteti

Leroo La Tau

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