Planet Baobab

Plant Baobab is the Baobab Capital of the World, where the average age of each tree is more than 4000 years, and the boundless lunar landscape of the Makgadikgadi Salt Pans are the size of Switzerland. How’s that for awe-inspiring?

This is a quirky place in a quirky part of the world, where we live cheek to tusk with old elephants; sleep in Afro-chic Bakalanga Huts; swim in the largest, coolest pool in the Kalahari; eat the finest pan-African cuisine, and of course, drink something cold with hunters and vagabonds, travelers and locals in the funkiest bar in Africa. It’s the coolest desert oasis around – and a part of Africa that few will experience, but all will remember.

At dawn, the staff will have you transported to Ntwetwe where you spend the day exploring the salt pans. Ntwetwe is the bigger of the two Makgadikgadi Pans, extending as far as the eye can see in all directions, a breathtaking expanse of nothingness. The peripheries are dotted with the remains of ancient bygone cultures and the pans are scattered with the salty, petrified skeletons of past wet seasons. Birds, insects, mammals and reptiles have all succumbed to the heat of the pans and their perfectly preserved remains are a strange reminder of the fleeting fertility of the rains.