Little Mombo

Yes, every single one of the superlatives used by all the other reviewers are valid. Mombo Camp is quite possibly the best place in the world. Luckily, I followed the advice I had read while booking the trip and saved Mombo for last, because while I loved all the other places we stayed (Lion Sands Ivory, Thonga Beach Lodge, Little Vumbura), they all pale in comparison to Mombo.

We stayed at Little Mombo, which is attached by a raised boardwalk to Mombo but has its own staff and dining area. I far preferred it to the atmosphere at Mombo camp, which was nice, but too many people for my taste. The rooms are the same at both camps. And beautiful rooms they are! Permanent tents, but with a separate sitting area, big outdoor deck overlooking the bush, indoor and outdoor showers, huge comfy bed. We were actually the only people at Little Mombo for our three night stay, so we had private dinners set up on our deck of our room each night, were the only people on the game drives, and it felt like we had a whole safari lodge and staff to ourselves...because we did! Nat, the GM of Little Mombo was superb. No request was too much trouble. We found ourselves without enough memory on our camera memory cards, so they downloaded all our pics and videos onto DVDs so we could reuse the ones we had. They had talked to the camp (Little Vumbura) we had flown in from and found out what we liked to drink and stocked our in-room cooler accordingly. The food was amazing, worldclass caliber. Surprise lunch in the bush overlooking a hippo pond, a surprise cocktail party on our last night around the pool, everything was just perfect and lovely.

But the game...! Just on our drive from the airstrip we saw more game than we had in our previous six days and nights of safari drives. We arrived shortly after some horrific events had happened at camp. A territorial lion war had raged through the camp, causing a lockdown the previous day and resulting in two male lions breaking the back of a lioness right in camp. The remains of a cape buffalo kill were still right outside our room. The lions we saw (and they were magnificent!) had new wounds and battle scars. We saw a giraffe kill after the takedown, and some of the rare white rhino who had been reintroduced into the region. A great talk was held at Mombo one night by the guy in charge of the rhino reintroduction program. The schedule is typical of most safari camps, up at 5am, breakfast at 530am, leave at 6am, back around 10am depending on how things are, then back out at 430pm, although no night drives are allowed, so you're in on the afternoon drive by about 7pm. We saw huge herds of cape buffalo, zebra, elephant, plenty of babies. One drive we saw the Big Five in about two hours. Our driver Tsile was the kindest, most knowledgeable, funniest guide in a trip full of remarkable guides. And a great driver, which we needed! It is indeed, the bush!

Our favorite was the lone remaining wild dog, who we affectionately call Daisy. We think of her often and hope she's doing well! I can't rave enough about the place and can't wait to go back. The smell of the wild sage, the glorious baobab trees, the huge hippo munching outside our tent, the stunning sunsets and sunrises. I dream of Mombo.