Makgadikgadi Salt Pans & Kalahari Desert, Botswana

Sunset drinks at Jack's Camp, Makgadikgadi

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The Kalahari Desert, which covers 80% of Botswana, is somewhat overlooked by many visitors, who head straight to the Okavango and Chobe waterways. Yet it has its own breath-taking beauty. No visit to Botswana can be said to be truly complete without experiencing the 'desert' as well as the delta. In fact, the Kalahari is not a true desert, but rather an arid savanna wilderness, which, despite its poor sandy soils, manages to sustain a rich diversity of wildlife that has adapted to the bone-dry conditions.

Our guests tend to visit one of three areas in the Kalahari desert either the saltpans of the Makgadikgadi to the south-west of the Okavango Delta, the dry Boteti river on the edge of the Makgadikgadi pans or the Central Kalahari Game Reserve which lies south of the Okavango Delta. Click here for more on the Central Kalahari Game Reserve...

The Makgadikgadi Pans
The Makgadikgadi Salt Pans are the legacy of a great lake, larger than Lake Victoria, which once covered most of Southern Botswana about two million years ago. Vast shallow white pans make up an extraordinary landscape - deceptively animated by mirages that shimmer and dance in the heat-blasted air. However when the summer rains come in summer the pans are transformed into shallow lakes and attract spectacular bird life including thousands of flamingos, pelicans and cranes - a majestic spectacle.

With the summer rains (December to April), the pans are transformed into shallow lakes and these rains attract the last surviving migration of wildebeest and zebra in Southern Africa to the surrounding sweet summer grasses. During this time, the lodges offer game drives in 4x4 vehicles, custom designed to suit this terrain. In the dry winter months you can explore the pan by quad bike and perhaps observe the desert-adapted wildlife of gemsbok, suricate and rare brown hyena.

Mornings spent with meerkats, visits to majestic baobab trees used as camp sites by Livingstone, and walks with the Bushmen are all on offer. Jack Camp and San Camp are two camps in the heart of the Makgadikgadi pans.

Boteti River
This game-rich area likes on the edge of the Makgadikgadi salt pans and lies in the migration path of the wildebeest and zebra which migrate in vast numbers between the Makgadikgadi salt pans to the east and the Okavango Delta and Savute plains to the north-west. The Boteti river is usually dry but has underground water which offers the only water source for the thirsty animals on their migration. From here you can enjoy a day excursion into Nxai pan if you are staying three or more nights. Leroo Le Tau and Meno a Kwena are two lodges in this area.