Makgadikgadi & Nxai Pans National Parks

What would happen if a gigantic super lake were to drain and eventually, dry out? When you visit the Makgadikgadi, you might find it hard to believe that the area around you was once covered by a massive lake. It is the vast salt flats which you see all the way onto the horizon that can show you what happens. It creates a unique landscape, beautiful in its bareness and marvellous in its ability to transform from a dry salt pan to a place where wildlife flourishes after the rains.

The Makgadikgadi Pan is the largest in a complex of salt pans which also includes the Nxai, Nwetwe and the Sua Pans. Together they form the largest salt pan complex in the world. The almost endless wide expanses of the salt pans stretching out onto the horizon can provide you with an exhilarating sense of isolation. You are surrounded by deafening silence, and it is in this silence that you can admire the most spectacular sunrises and sunsets.

The Nxai Pan is older than the Makgadikgadi Pan and is grass covered with clusters of acacias and gigantic baobabs dotted across the landscape. None of these baobabs are more famous than Baines’ Baobabs. Named after the explorer Thomas Baines, these seven impressive baobabs still stand as proud as they did one hundred years ago when Baines first painted them.

Explore Kubu Island, a place shrouded in mystery. Located on the Sua Pan, this outcrop of igneous rock is an “island” in a vast sea of salt flats. The island was once exactly that, an island in the massive Lake Makgadikgadi. Rounded pebbles still point to a time when the waves of the lake would crash against its rocks. The entire island is a national monument and is considered sacred to the local San (or sometimes known as Basarwa in Botswana). It contains prehistoric artifacts and a stone wall, shaped in a semi-circle. The origins of the stone wall we can only speculate on. What we can definitely say however, is that a sunset seen from Kubu Island is one not easily forgotten.

It is always the best season to visit the Makgadikgadi as the dry season and the wet season offer you two completely different perspectives and different activities. During the dry season (April to October), conditions are harsh, and the landscapes can best be admired for their haunting beauty. It is during this season when one can drive over the pans, have a sleep-out on the pans themselves and revel in the most stunning starlit sky. During the wet season on the other hand (November to March), the region comes alive with massive herds of migrating zebra and wildebeest in search of the fresh grasses which the rains bring. Other animals which can be seen include impala, springbok, eland, oryx, lion, leopard, cheetah, hyena and sometimes even elephant.

Should you be interested in bird watching, then the wet season is the one for you. During this time, hundreds of thousands of flamingos along with flocks of pelicans, ducks and geese come to the waterfilled pans and transform them into a bird lover’s paradise.

The Makgadikgadi offers something uniquely beautiful to everyone, no matter when you plan to travel. As you stare out over the distant horizon, with the sunset illuminating the sky around you, you can feel the mystique surrounding the Makgadikgadi and know that this is a feeling you will carry with you for a long time.