The largest salt pans in the world, spanning over 16,000 km² (9,942 m²), the Makgadikgadi Pans are an awe-inspiring sight; a vast sea of white that was once the centre of a huge lake that evaporated more than 2,000 years ago. Remnants of an ancient lake, the pans are interspersed with sandy desert and occasional vegetation, and is home to one of Africa’s largest zebra populations. When the rains fall during the wet season, the pans fill with water and attract large numbers of zebra, springbok and wildebeest, followed closely by predators, making for fantastic game viewing.
Shimmering miles of white are made up of surreal landscapes where flocks of swallows soar in ragged formation and elephant tracks appear seemingly out of nowhere, blend into a sense of endless space. In the midst of this nothingness lies Kubu Island, a granite outcrop walled with companies of baobab reaching stubby branches towards the sky.
In this extraordinary and almost lunar landscape guests can stand on the spot where the mighty Zambezi River once flowed into a gigantic lake that covered these pans, leaving behind a beach full of smooth pebbles. At the world’s biggest breeding site of greater flamingos, unusual mud nests wait for their inhabitants’ annual return.
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