Shinde

Location

The northern Okavango Delta is not one landscape but two, superimposed. For most of the year, the floodwater that fell as rain in Angola’s highlands months earlier creeps south through the Kalahari sand, swelling channels, submerging islands, and redrawing the map. Shinde sits at the junction where this permanent water system meets dry grassland, a boundary that makes the concession productive in any month, not merely the photogenic ones.

NG21 is small by Delta standards, roughly ninety square kilometres of floodplain, palm island, and papyrus channel shared between just three camps. Radio-enforced limits keep vehicle numbers to two or three per sighting, a discipline that larger concessions talk about but rarely maintain. The private status also permits night drives, off-road tracking, and walking safaris, none of which are allowed across the eastern boundary in Moremi Game Reserve. For a concession bordered by a national reserve, NG21 behaves less like a buffer zone and more like a members’ club with better rules.

The camp itself occupies a raised palm island on the edge of Shinde Lagoon, shaded by ebony and wild date palm. The main area looks out across permanent water to open floodplain beyond. Some tents face the lagoon and its traffic of elephants coming to drink; others overlook grassland where lion prides are resident year-round. The camp is unfenced, and animals move through it freely.

The flood cycle is the engine of everything here. Peak water arrives between June and August, deepening channels, opening new mokoro routes, and compressing wildlife onto shrinking islands where sightings concentrate. Dry season draws elephant herds and buffalo to the permanent water sources around camp. The green season, November to March, replaces big herds with baby animals and migrant birds, different rewards at lower rates. Shinde’s permanent water means boat and mokoro activities run outside peak flood too, a practical advantage over camps that switch entirely between water and land programmes as the season turns.

The approach by light aircraft from Maun takes thirty minutes, most of it spent looking down at the Delta’s capillary network of channels, a useful preview of the landscape you are about to enter on foot and by boat.

Rooms

The 2020 rebuild gave Shinde a design language that leans into its setting rather than away from it: teak, canvas, and elevation, the whole camp raised into the canopy on wooden platforms. It is not minimalist. The look is classic safari with enough polish to feel considered, not contrived.

Seven standard tents sit on raised teak decks connected by wooden walkways, each with canvas walls, large windows, and a private viewing deck over grassland or waterway. Beds are king-sized or extra-length, convertible to twins on request. En-suites run to dual vanities, flush toilets, and both indoor and outdoor showers. Standing and ceiling fans handle the heat; full solar electricity (220-240V) keeps devices charged. One tent occupies a more secluded position, occasionally assigned to honeymooners.

The family tent shares the same specification but connects two bedrooms through a central en-suite bathroom, sleeping up to five. For families with younger children or those wanting total autonomy, the Enclave is the better answer.

The Enclave operates as a separate camp: three tents on exclusive-use basis for a maximum of six guests, with its own senior guide, private vehicle, chef, dining area, lounge, bar, and boma. Dedicated waiter and housekeeper complete the staffing. The decks overlook papyrus waterways rather than the grassland aspect of main camp, a genuine difference in atmosphere rather than a marketing distinction. Guests retain access to the main camp pool and curio shop, but most find little reason to leave. For photography groups, the private vehicle and flexible schedule remove the negotiation that comes with shared game drives. For multigenerational families or three couples travelling together, it functions as a self-contained lodge within a lodge.

Communal Areas

The main lodge sits raised among ebony and mangosteen trees, a multi-tiered timber structure that earns the treehouse label. Wooden walkways connect the tents to a sequence of decks at different levels: lounge, bar, dining, fire pit, each stepping down toward the lagoon. The effect is of being in the canopy rather than beneath it.

The lounge doubles as library and curio shop, furnished in a traditional safari style: leather, brass, dark wood, an aesthetic closer to an older era of Delta camps than to the poured-concrete lodges that have followed since. A well-stocked bar anchors the upper deck. Below, a fire deck serves as the camp’s gathering point after dark, where guides debrief the day’s sightings and the camp’s signature hot chilli sauce circulates with rather less ceremony than the wine.

Meals follow the communal long-table format that suits a camp of this size. Breakfast runs from buffet to cooked-to-order. Dinner is a three-course plated affair, Western-international with occasional Botswana inflections. All supplies arrive by light aircraft, which concentrates the kitchen’s attention on planning; dietary requirements need advance notice but are handled capably. Bush picnics during drives and sundowners in the field break up the lodge routine. The Enclave operates its own kitchen and dining area entirely independently.

The swimming pool, raised with views across the plains, is a genuine amenity rather than an afterthought. Wi-Fi is limited and dress code is safari casual

Activities

The private concession does the work. Because Shinde operates under private concession rules rather than shared national park regulations, guests get off-road tracking, night drives, and the freedom to follow a wild dog hunt across open floodplain without encountering other vehicles. Morning and afternoon game drives run three to four hours each in open 4x4s, with the afternoon drive extending into a spotlight session using red-filtered light. Lion and leopard sightings are High year-round, wild dog High during the June to September denning season, and elephant Very High throughout. Off-road tracking is at the guide’s discretion, and on a private concession with low vehicle density, off-road driving is common.

Water activities run parallel rather than as substitutes. Mokoro excursions work reliably here because Shinde’s channels hold water year-round. A couple of hours at dawn in a traditional dugout, watching sitatunga pick through the papyrus, offers a different pace and focus from the game drive. Motorboat safaris cover more ground and open up the Gadikwe Heronry, a colony of several thousand waterbirds reached by a half-day boat trip. Peak months are August through December, when yellow-billed stork, marabou, Goliath heron, and the uncommon slaty egret are nesting. A strict fifty-metre exclusion zone is observed, and Pel’s fishing owl frequents the surrounding islands. Walking safaris with armed, FGASA-certified guides complete the land programme, focused on tracking and botany rather than big game at close quarters. Guests whose primary interest is walking should consider Footsteps Across the Delta, a sister camp on the same concession built around multi-day trails.

Guide quality across the operation is strong. All hold FGASA and BWTI certification with CyberTracker training, and the concession enforces a two-to-three vehicle maximum per sighting by radio. Each seat comes with an individual camera mount, a small detail that separates camps that understand photographers from those that tolerate them. Fishing is catch-and-release from March to December, with tigerfish running September to mid-November.

The conservation credentials are specific rather than cosmetic: a seventy-five kilowatt solar array powers the camp entirely, reverse osmosis eliminates single-use plastic bottles, and the operation supports Bana Ba Letsatsi, a rehabilitation centre in Maun for over two hundred orphaned and vulnerable children. Guests can contribute directly through Pack for a Purpose.