Makgadikgadi
The salt floor of a vanished lake, white and empty in winter, green after the summer storms when zebra and wildebeest walk west towards the Boteti, reached by charter from Maun.
- Arrival
- Maun · MUB
- To the pans
- About 162 kilometres east of Maun, by charter
- Private jets
- Into Maun, then light aircraft
- Best time
- December to March
The city
Salt, grass and a lost lake.
Makgadikgadi is what remains of a prehistoric lake: some 12,000 square kilometres of pans, roughly the size of Portugal, laid across north-eastern Botswana. Sowa lies to the east and Ntwetwe to the west, the two largest; the Makgadikgadi Pans Game Reserve takes in the western end of Ntwetwe.
For much of the year the surface is dry and dazzling. The summer downpours change it, and in good years the pans flood: zebra and wildebeest move west across the grass towards the Boteti, and flamingos gather on Sowa and at Nata in tens, sometimes hundreds, of thousands.
- Baines' Baobabs Seven gnarled trees named after the nineteenth-century explorer Thomas Baines, about 30 kilometres from the Nxai Pan gate.
- Kubu Island A rock outcrop crowned with baobabs in the middle of Sowa Pan, protected as a national monument.
- The meerkats A walk among meerkat colonies, one of the highlights Botswana Tourism lists for the game reserve.
Arriving
Jet to Maun, charter to the pans.
There is no scheduled service to the pans themselves. Travellers come through Maun, about 162 kilometres to the west, and fly on by charter to the camp airstrips.
- Johannesburg 1 h 15
- Cape Town 2 h 25
- Mauritius 4 h 40
- Doha 7 h 50 long-range jet
- Frankfurt 10 h 40 long-range jet
When to go
December to March.
From December to March the rains, 62 to 113 mm a month at Maun, turn the grassland green, bring the herds and, in a good year, water to the pans. From mid-April to mid-October the pans lie dry and bare under days of 25 to 29 °C until August, and some camps open only in these months.
- 33° J 113
- 32° F 104
- 31° M 62
- 30° A 26
- 28° M 4
- 25° J 1
- 26° J 0
- 29° A 0
- 32° S 4
- 34° O 17
- 34° N 49
- 33° D 86
Elsewhere in Botswana
More reasons to come.
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