White Sands and Wide Skies: Adventures on the Makgadikgadi Pans
“Get ready for a nice African massage,” our guide said as we piled into the Land Rover for our two hour jolty drive to the Makgadikgadi Salt Pans.
Given its unique landscape, a trip to ‘the pans' in Botswana’s Kalahari Basin is a must-do. The name Makgadikgadi means “vast, lifeless land.” Not exactly what you’d put on a tourism brochure! Though a visit here does not disappoint.
A stark contrast to the wildlife-filled savanna, Makgadikgadi offers a moonscape of flat nothingness – surprisingly beautiful in its own rite.
The road weaves through open rangeland, but it’s still common to catch a glimpse of the occasional ostrich and Botswana’s ubiquitous elephants. Unlike other game drives in Botswana, you'll find livestock instead of the usual African wildlife, with goats and cows as your bush companions.
Joining us on the bone-jangling journey were four temporary strangers. A fun benefit of exploring, we happily discussed housing prices, holidays, and culture with two Dutch travelers along the way. Our other entertainment was the newly Tinder-connected couple in the front seat who were more excited to be together than to examine our surroundings.
The Meerkat Mob: Always on Patrol
On the way out to the vast expanse, travelers get the chance to meet one of Southern Africa’s most curious creatures: the meerkat. These pint-sized sentinels live in colonies, and are perpetually on the lookout for danger.
With their eyes peeled for predators, they communicate warnings to each other and always seek the highest vantage point to get a better view. Sometimes, this prime lookout spot is a visitor brave enough to lay down on the prickly African grass, adopting the "rock position" for a while.
More about Meerkats
Social Structure: Meerkats live in highly social groups called "mobs," "gangs," or "clans," which typically consist of 20-50 members.
Lookout Duty: Meerkats take turns serving as sentinels, standing on their hind legs to watch for predators and warn the group of danger.
Communication: They use a complex system of vocalizations to communicate with each other, including different calls for different types of predators.
Natural Shades: Meerkats have dark patches around their eyes, which reduce glare from the sun, and their ears can close to keep out dirt while digging.
Let’s not forget the other living giants on display in this part of Botswana, those tree celebrities of Africa: the baobab. Affectionately dubbed the "Tree of Life," it is nature's skyscraper in the African savanna. With a trunk that looks like it’s on steroids and branches resembling roots, it’s as if baobabs decided to wear their leaves upside down. These ancient giants, some over 2,000 years old, are survival experts, hoarding water in their trunks to outlast droughts like seasoned survivalists.
Where Land Meets Salt: An Ancient Sparkling Expanse
First, a little geology: Natural salt pans are flat expanses of ground covered with salt and other minerals, known for shimmering under the sun. Botswana’s Makgadikgadi Pans (ma-KHAD-ik-KHAD-ee) is one of the largest salt pans in the world, covering a massive area the size of Switzerland. It’s all that is left of an enormous lake that dried up tens of thousands of years ago.
There is something about traveling to new places that can really make you feel like you have a lot to learn. Since we arrived in Botswana, I have heard the word ‘pan’ regularly used to describe places and geographies.
I felt like my vocabulary had a gap somewhere. What on earth is a pan, anyway? Going from no knowledge, to some, to a little more…that’s the essence of what makes discovering new places so valuable. There is no shame in not knowing as long as you are curious! Adventures are often the best ways to learn, afterall.
So we marvel at this extraordinary lunar landscape and soak up a bit more knowledge than we had before. Surrounded by the Kalahari Desert, Makgadikgadi is technically not a single pan, but many pans with sandy desert in between. The most commonly visited are Sua, Ntwetwe and Nxai Pans. Our overnight parked us in the middle of the Ntwetwe Pan, an ethereal landscape where the sky and earth merge into a seamless horizon.
"I can still see you!" Emory does his best to outrun our line of sight.
The pans have a knack for snapping up each of your senses, leaving little time for the mind to wander. A view for miles, an earthy aroma of musky dust, and perhaps most amusing, the sensation of a crisp crunch under foot as you crack through the dry, salty, clay crust with each step. Emory likened it to the thin layer of ice he would search out and stomp through on chilly mornings before school. “Isn’t it so satisfying?” he’d ask with glee.
Most of the year, that pleasing crunch is non-existent. The pans are seasonally covered with water and grass, and are then a refuge for birds and animals in this very arid part of the world. 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 it a top spot for game viewing.
The typical experience out to an overnight on the pans goes something like this: Bumpy ride out to a cattle outpost, mount quad bikes and ride into the nothingness in a cloud of dust. Then, as the quad bikes slow, you catch a glimpse of your camp: a long communal table lit by paraffin lanterns, an open fire surrounded by welcoming camp chairs, and in the distance, neatly placed single mattresses spaced out in a wide semicircle and protected from the elements by thick canvas covers.
As we pull up, it’s not lost on me that despite our best hopes, the widest skies we’ve ever seen are still covered in the rare blanket of clouds. One of the primary motivations of heading out into the middle of nowhere is to catch a glimpse of not just incredible stars, but galaxies. It’s common to see the glimmering outlines of the Milky Way and even Andromeda from here. But alas, Mother Nature is the ultimate boss and we take what we can get.
We sleep soundly – no need to worry about big cat encounters in this barren landscape. Thankfully, we awake around 2 or 3 in the morning and catch a break in the cloud cover. Stars are everywhere, a few of them losing their long held place in the sky as they shoot down in a flashy streak.
The vibrant starry nights are what draw people to this place, but I think the morning is where the magic happens. It’s rare to be planted on ground so flat in every direction that the sun’s rise feels like it’s emerging from a crack in the ground and not a rotating planet. Shimmering light spreads in all directions, an uninterrupted display of fluorescent red, orange, yellow, and white. Not a bad way to greet a new day.
We warm ourselves by a morning fire with cocoa, coffee, tea, and muffins and then prepare to board the quads for a dusty ride back to the cattle post. I make a mental note to sit in front of the Tinder couple on the Land Rover ride back to camp if we can.
Dusty and happy, we arrive back at camp to another chorus of “We must take our friends here!” from Ben and Emory. A welcome and validating refrain of the trip's success.
More about Makgadikgadi
Modern Homo sapiens are believed to have first evolved here around 200,000 years ago.
The Makgadikgadi Pans can be seen from the moon. During the dry season, they form vast, shimmering white flats that transform into watering holes in the wet season.
Between December and March, the rains bring lush grasses, attracting Africa's second-largest zebra migration from the Boteti River, followed closely by predators.
In the winter months, the pans become a vital breeding ground for both greater and lesser flamingos, creating a stunning spectacle with their bright pink plumage against the saltwater lakes.
