Where Eagle Island Lodge sits
Eagle Island Lodge stands on Xaxaba Island in the Okavango Delta — the name means “island of tall trees”, and the trees are the first thing you notice. The Delta is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the largest inland deltas in the world, and Xaxaba sits in the permanent water, which is what makes the lodge’s water-based programme possible all year rather than only in flood.
The tents
There are twelve tented rooms, each 82 square metres, taking two adults. Rooms have oversized king beds with hand-crafted copper headboards, and each has its own private plunge pool. Eighty-two square metres is generous even by Delta standards, and the plunge pool matters in the heat of October.
The Fish Eagle Bar and main areas
The lodge has a restaurant and an open-air bar — the Fish Eagle Bar — along with a boutique, a television lounge and library, and exercise equipment with yoga mats. Wifi runs throughout the property.
The wellness pod
A wellness pod offers treatments on the island. It is a small operation rather than a full spa, which suits a twelve-room lodge.
Mokoro excursions
Mokoro trips are the signature Delta activity: a shallow dugout poled through the reed channels, at water level and in near silence. From a permanent-water island like Xaxaba the mokoro works year-round, which is not true everywhere in the Delta.
Boat safaris
Motorboat safaris run on the deeper channels and lagoons, covering more ground than a mokoro and giving a different kind of birding and hippo viewing. The combination of mokoro and boat is what defines a water camp.
Game drives
Land-based game drives are offered with a minimum of two game-viewing activities included daily. Island and floodplain drives in the Delta produce elephant, buffalo, lechwe and, for the fortunate, leopard.
Helicopter flights
Helicopter tours over the Delta are available from the lodge. From the air the Delta’s structure — the channels, the islands, the flood edge — becomes legible in a way it never is from the ground, and it is the single best way to understand where you are.
Getting there
The lodge has a private airstrip and helipad. Flights run about 20 minutes from Maun and about 60 minutes from Kasane, with transfers included in the rate, and the sister lodge at Savute is roughly 45 minutes away by air — which makes a two-lodge water-and-land combination straightforward.
Who it suits
Travellers who want the water side of the Okavango — mokoro, boats, birding, and the quiet of a permanent-water island — with a high level of comfort and a private plunge pool. It pairs naturally with a dry-land camp in Savute, Moremi or Linyanti, since the Delta’s water camps and its game camps do quite different things.
