The Savuti (also spelt Savute) area borders the Delta to the west and Chobe National Park to the east and is one of Africa's best known big game areas. Savuti is a place of enchantment, of beauty, and boasts one of the greatest concentrations of animals in Southern Africa.
Savuti Channel:
Savuti is famous for its mysterious and fascinating channel. It runs a distance of 100 kilometers from the Chobe River, through a gap in the sand ridge, to the Mababe Depression. Falling only approximately 18 meters, this channel brings water from the Chobe to Mababe, creating a small marsh where it enters the Depression. Flowing in Livingstone's time, the channel was dry in 1880, and remained dry for about 70 years. It flooded again in 1957. Savuti Marsh has been dry for the past 18 years.
Wildlife:
Savuti is famous for its predators, especially its resident lion and spotted hyena populations. Only 38 kilometers northwest of Savuti and off the main tourist track lies Botswana's best kept secret: Linyanti and the western reaches of the Savuti Channel.
The Linyanti and upper Savuti areas are among the most beautiful in Botswana. The game-viewing can be exceptional, and the wide variety of activities make this an area not be missed. Linyanti hosts large herds of buffalo, zebra and elephant. Because this area is a private game reserve, the vehicle concentrations are very low and the wilderness experience is one of the best in Africa.
Birdlife:
Large secretary birds and kori bustards can be sighted strutting around the Savuti marsh and small redbilledfrancolins is known for its noisiness. Interesting summer migrants and water birds include Abdim's storks, carmine bee eaters and even fish eagles. Little quelea finches are quite a spectacle as they gather in thousands. They are in abundance in April when a single flock could contain tens of thousands of these small birds.
Vegetation:
The Savuti area is mainly characterised by Camelthorn (Acacia erioloba) sandveld, Silver Terminalia (Terminaliasericea) sandveld, scrub savanna, and mopane veld. Savuti's almost desert-like landscape with a scorching sun, loose, hot sand, animals escaping the heat by clumping together in the limited available shade, and elephants lining up to get to the water supply, offer a wildlife experience you won't easily forget.
Geology:
This desolate, harsh landscape was once submerged beneath an enormous inland sea. Geologically the five main features of Savuti (namely the Magwikhwe Sand Ridge, the Mababe Depression, the Savuti Marsh with its dead trees, the Rocky Outcrops, and the Savuti Channel) are all intricately linked in the most fascinating manner.
People still speculate as to how this once massive lake received its waters. The most popular explanation is that once the Upper Zambezi, the Chobe, and the Okavango rivers flowed together, across the north of Botswana and down to the sea via the Limpopo.
A gentle warping of the Earth's crust dammed this flow to create a vast lake. In time, however, further crustal movement caused these rivers to find a new route to the sea. The direction of these rivers changed by faulting; the Upper Zambezi and the Chobe turned to the northeast and, after plunging over the Victoria Falls, joined what is now the Middle Zambezi.
Trapped by an emerging rift valley, the Okavango bled its waters into the sand to form the delta. A changing climate which reduced rainfall and brought a return of almost desert-like conditions caused the super-lake to be cut off from its supplies of water, and dry up and vanished.
