We just finished a delightful 3 night stay at Duba Plains. As others have said, the staff, service, and food were excellent!! Antoinette and Pierre, along with OT and the staff are very attentive to all needs and preferences. Pierre makes the most amazing dishes, and this, by far, is the BEST food we have ever had in our three trips to Africa so far!! Pierre is a master of spices and herbs, and has some of the most inventive, delicious combinations imaginable.
Now, to the primary reason to choose Duba Plains over a any other camp in the Okanvango Delta...the highly touted and advertised lions and buffalo interaction. Well, it only happens if the buffalo are there at the time you visit. If not, tough luck...and you still get to pay almost $3,000 USD per night for two. And we had extremely bad luck on this count. It seems three of the lions had taken down a buffalo two days before we arrived at Duba. After the hunt, the ENTIRE herd of buffalo crossed over to Paradise Island.....we were actually greeted by our guide, Stanley, at the airstrip with " The buffalo are gone, and we are not sure when or if they will be back"!!! Are you kidding me? I could have chosen many other beautiful camps in The Delta.....I understand that Mother Nature does not always guarantee what you expect, but REALLY???? Why does Duba put such a strong emphasis on the lion/buffalo interaction, get everybody hopped up with expectations of seeing something totally different, and then it really only happens about once every four days. And it NEVER happens if the buffalo have left the area!! ( which by the way they do in the dry season because of less grass to graze)
The price does not go down without buffalo....but the action certainly does! Even one afternoon as we watched a pride of six lions sleeping our guide, Stanley, quipped " It really is so boring here without the buffalo!!" That did not help overcome my expectations. We did see some of the most beautiful and HUGE lions we ever saw in Africa. They get very big and strong from eating buffalo meat and swimming the channels in the wet season.
So, I guess my comments would be to choose Duba Plains in the wet season in the Delta. Then all the animals are trapped on islands, and the buffalo herd has a more difficult time escaping the lions. We were just there and the Delta was quite dry in September. The only other highlight was seeng a leopard out in the open jump into a tree to finish her catch from two days before.
Our guide, Stanley was okay. He works at Selinda, a sister camp, but used to guide at Duba. He knows the area and we did find various lions, because of his tracking experience. However, he was very set in the "process" of each game drive. Make sure coffee and sundowners are a specific time, show guests what you think they want to see, as opposed to listening to our requests. Also, he did night drives with a light every time we were headed back to camp. We told him we did not care about night drives, as it s very hard to even see anything...just drive back so we can get a. Shower and make the 8:00 dinner time.it was like he did not hear us at all. We got back two nights at just about 8:00, and saw NOTHING on the lit drive to warrant the rushing around to try to keep dinner from being late for the other 10 guests.
So, all in all, an average experience on safari, compared to some others we have experienced. Go to Duba if you want to see some of the biggest lions ever, and experience outrageously great food! But do not go with the inflated expectations of seeing lions even tease the buffalo.
