Kalahari & Salt Pans: Meerkats, Baobabs & Desert Lions

Today you explore the Central Kalahari fully, combining big-game tracking with a rare cultural encounter. At dawn you set out by 4x4 across the golden grasslands and fossil valleys, tracking the celebrated black-maned Kalahari lions and looking for cheetah, leopard, brown hyena and herds of oryx, springbok and hartebeest, superbly adapted to this arid land. Later you join San Bushmen for a guided bush walk, one of the great privileges of a Kalahari safari, learning how these master survivors find water, identify medicinal plants, set traps, make fire by hand and read the desert, a humbling window into an ancient way of life. After a midday rest through the heat, an afternoon game drive follows the desert wildlife as it stirs, ending with sundowners over the immense plains. Dinner is under the stars, the Kalahari night alive with distant calls. Rest well.

After a final morning game drive in the Central Kalahari, you fly by light aircraft to the Makgadikgadi Pans, among the largest salt flats on earth and the ghostly bed of a vast prehistoric lake. Landing near the pans, you transfer to your atmospheric camp on the grasslands at the edge of the white expanse. After brunch and time to settle in, you set out this afternoon to explore this surreal landscape, perhaps a game drive across the grasslands where zebra, wildebeest and springbok graze, or a first walk out onto the shimmering edge of the pans as the light softens. In the dry season the pans stretch empty and white to a curved horizon; in the green season they draw great herds. You pause for sundowners in this vast, silent place, then return to camp for dinner beneath some of the darkest, starriest skies on earth. Rest well.

Today you savour the unique experiences of the Makgadikgadi. In the golden early morning you visit a colony of habituated wild meerkats, sitting quietly among them at eye level as they emerge from their burrows to bask and stand sentinel, one of Africa's most charming and intimate wildlife encounters. Later, in the dry season, you ride quad bikes far out across the shimmering white expanse of the salt pans, the wind in your face and nothing but blinding white to a horizon that curves with the earth, to a remoteness few ever reach. You might visit Kubu Island, a ghostly granite outcrop studded with ancient baobabs, or learn about the region's archaeology and geology from your guide. As the sun sets over the pans you sip sundowners in the immense silence, then, conditions permitting, sleep out on the pans beneath a sky ablaze with stars. Rest well.

After a final morning on the Makgadikgadi, you fly by light aircraft the short distance north to Nxai Pan, a fossil lake bed and national park famous for its baobabs and, in season, its zebra migration. Landing on a remote airstrip, you transfer by open 4x4 to your camp overlooking the pan and its waterhole, game viewing along the way. After brunch and time to settle in, you set out this afternoon on a game drive across the pan, which in the green season teems with zebra, wildebeest, springbok and the predators that follow them, lion, cheetah and wild dog, drawn to the fresh grasslands and waterholes. You watch the herds and hunters at the waterhole as the light turns golden, then pause for sundowners in this vast, wild place. Dinner follows around the fire beneath brilliant stars. Rest well amid the silence of Nxai Pan, poised for its ancient baobabs tomorrow.

Today you explore the wonders of Nxai Pan. A highlight is the drive out to the Baines Baobabs, a magnificent cluster of ancient baobab trees, thousands of years old, immortalised by the painter Thomas Baines in 1862 and barely changed since, standing sentinel on the edge of a vast, shimmering pan, glowing gold in the morning or evening light. You spend time beneath these extraordinary trees, taking in their scale and antiquity, before continuing your game viewing across the pan, in the green season a stage for one of Africa's great spectacles, the zebra migration, when tens of thousands of zebra and wildebeest pour onto the fresh grass, drawing lions and cheetah. After a midday rest, an afternoon game drive follows the herds and predators around the waterholes as the light softens. You pause for a final desert sundowner, then return to camp for a farewell dinner under the stars. Rest well.

After a final morning game drive at Nxai Pan and breakfast, you fly by light aircraft back to Maun, gazing down at the vast desert landscapes one last time, and connect with your onward flight, or continue to the Okavango, Chobe or Victoria Falls on an extension. You leave having immersed yourself in the vast, dramatic desert heart of Botswana, tracking black-maned lions and walking with San Bushmen in the Central Kalahari, meeting meerkats and quad biking the shimmering Makgadikgadi Pans beneath brilliant stars, and standing beneath the ancient Baines Baobabs at Nxai Pan. The images stay vivid long after you land, the black-maned lion on the golden plains, the meerkats sentinel in the dawn, the endless white pans, and the ancient baobabs glowing at sunset. The Kalahari offers wildness, space, ancient culture and immense skies in abundance, and you depart already dreaming of a return to Botswana's desert heart.