Makgadikgadi

The Makgadikgadi Salt Pan was once a superlake almost 100 feet (30 metres) deep,
over an area of 30,888 sq. miles (80,000 square km). The climate changed and
10,000 years ago Lake Makgadikgadi was well on the way to drying up.
As the water evaporated, huge glistening salt-encrusted pans were left.
These pans look as flat as a billiard table and stretch as far as the eye can see.

When we left the Victoria Falls airport we noticed this envelope in the men's room. A testament to
the HIV/Aids problem in Botswana. We flew from Vic Falls to a landing strip on the edge of the pans.
The photos above and below show the change in landscape as we approached Makgadikgadi.

Our first attempt to land was aborted because of a few stray buffalo on the landing strip. Notice I said landing
landing strip and not runway. Someone on the ground shooed them away and our second attempt was
successfull. Here is where we picked up our brand new 2002 Land Rover TD5 Defender 110's.
We immediatly set ours up with video camera mount and our own GPS <grin>

We drove from the airstrip to a place called Jack's Camp, also on the edge of the pans. It would be our
first night in a tent and it was the coldest it had been in southern Africa in decades. In Durbin, SA it
snowed for the first time in 30 years.

In my opinion the accomodations were exquisite. And I think Maura would have agreed had it not been so cold
Above are photos of our bucket shower, canopied bed and the lew.

The dining tent was like something right out of Lawrence of Arabia, and it was good to see a bit of
Americana on the table. The Tabasco was overshadowed, however by a local concoction of hot chiles
fermenting in a mixture of gin and who knows what else (see the red bottle in the center of the table
top right). It certainly warmed the insides. We dined on free range Botswana beef, which we both
agreed was the best beef we'd ever had. It was surpassed only by our breakfast which consisted
of a bowl of oatmeal with a shot of scotch mixed in.

Chapman's Baobab Tree - In the northern edge of Ntwetwe Pan, six giant baobabs twist around a
common trunk to form Chapman's Baobab, claimed to be the largest and one of the oldest baobabs
in the world; experts believe it began growing about 5500 years ago. With a circumference of 80 feet
at the base, this tree dwarfs everything else on the horizon. Early explorers including David
Livingstone used this tree as a post office box! It would take around 9 months for a piece of mail
left at the tree to reach England.

After dinner we were all instructed in the proper way to wrap a turban which we would need to survive
our ATV journey out onto the pans. While driving we encountered a herd of several hundred Zebra.
One of the most amazing things we had ever seen. They all stopped mid gallup to check us out. And
we did the same. When it was clear to them that we yielded them the right of away, they resumed their
journey into the sunset. And so did we. Off to enjoy the sunset with cocktails and hors d'oeuvres.

The evening was cold. Even the hot water bottles weren't much help, as is evidenced by the expression
on Maura's face. The water in the copper washbowl in front of the tent was frozen solid. But that was OK
because we were off for the Kalahari and personalized our truck for the event.

The pans were an entirely different place in the daytime, in a Land Rover than they had been in the evening
on an ATV. Flat and large and not a cloud in the sky. Real Big Sky Country

Maura and Rob Clifford enjoying a photo-op. From here we drove through the rest of the former
Lake Makgadikgadi towards the Central Kalahari Game Reserve.

ZAMBEZI / VIC FALLS / KALAHARI / BOTSWANA