DAY 1

Arrive at Camp Kalahari, nestled amongst the acacias and Mokolwane palms of Brown Hyaena Island, on the edge of the Makgadikgadi Salt Pans, adjacent to the Makgadikgadi-Nxai Pans National Park, Botswana.

This traditional bush camp has ten spacious Meru tents, comprising six twin tents, three double tents and one family unit which has two adjacent tents, accommodating two Guests in each with an inter-leading bathroom.

All Guest tents have en-suite covered bathrooms, hot and cold running water and flush loos along with four poster beds, crunchy cotton sheets, rich textiles, Moroccan kilims and hot water bottles in winter.

The following itinerary is an outline of the activities offered during your stay at Camp Kalahari, The order in which the activities are experienced may vary depending on weather and/or other factors. Please note that Guests with an early morning departure will not be able to do the final morning’s activity.

A thatched central library, living and dining area featuring an eclectic mix of original African furniture and textiles paired with traditional campaign style pieces and colonial antiques provide the perfect area in which to relax and enjoy the serenity of this enchanting area. For those who’d like to cool off, or enjoy a lazy siesta in or out of the sun, the thatched swimming pool pavilion is ideal.

Head off after tea in the beautiful afternoon light, stop to watch the sun set and listen to an explanation of how the Makgadikgadi pans, the remnants of the world’s largest ever super-lake, were formed.

Return to Camp Kalahari, for dinner.

DAY 2

Set off in the morning to visit some of the Kalahari’s most fascinating inhabitants, the meerkats.  As a meerkat’s wake up time is weather dependent, breakfast might be enjoyed in camp on cooler and rainy days, or as a picnic on warmer, sunnier days. Due to an ongoing habituation programme, it’s possible for Guests to get up close and personal with these captivating creatures. Remember, they are not tame – just used to our nonthreatening presence. On chilly mornings, you might well find a meerkat snuggling up to you for warmth.

Or, in the absence of a termite mound or tree, using your head as a sentry lookout post… By spending quality time with these incredibly social, superbly adapted animals, you will be able to see how they interact with each other and their environment.

You also get the chance to see the desert through the eyes of a meerkat – which, despite the fact that it’s only a foot off the ground, is a pretty spectacular vantage point, and definitely one of the most special and memorable game experiences you will encounter in Botswana. Leave the meerkats as they continue with their eternal foraging, to visit a remote cattle-post. Here you will learn about the traditional culture of the Batswana people.

Close by is the famous Chapman’s Baobab (Also known as the Seven Sisters) which is acknowledged to be the third largest tree in Africa, and was the campsite of early explorers like Livingstone and Selous when they pioneered the area.  This gives you an opportunity to gain a fascinating insight into the history of the early explorers.

Return to camp for a refreshing lunch and siesta.

After tea, head off in search of some unique desert species such as aardvark, bat eared foxes, aardwolves, and the elusive brown hyaena, which is the third rarest large carnivore in Africa, with only about 8,000 in the wild.

Brown Hyaenas are the consummate desert specialists, surviving in arid areas where both food and water are scarce. A timid, nocturnal species rarely seen by humans, but in spite of being solitary foragers, they are very social animals, living in clans of up to 10-12 hyenas.

Enjoy a night game drive back to camp, and with the aid of a spot light, look for nocturnal desert inhabitants such as aardvark, bat eared foxes, aardwolves, porcupine, honey badgers and perhaps even a black maned Kalahari Lion! Arrive at Camp Kalahari in time for dinner.

DAY 3

After an early breakfast, wrap a kikoi around your head in the style of Jack Bousfield and set off on the quad bikes across Ntwetwe Pan for The Island of Lost Baobabs, your campsite for the next two nights.

The journey to and from Kubu Island is completely extraordinary. A convoy, driving Indian-fashion ensures low-impact trespass and that you leave as little behind as possible as you barrel across the vast lunar expanses of scorched white earth.

As the day heats up, mirages swim and eddy.  Topiaried bay trees appear to hang above shimmering lakes - actually families of ostrich.  Flocks of swallows fly in ragged formation in bas-relief on the parched earth, and lie perfectly preserved in salt where they fall to earth with exhaustion. Elephant tracks walk in a circle and then enigmatically disappear, past the skulls of zebra, the bleached remainders of a previous migration.

Lose contact with time, space and direction.  Travel without perceptively moving. Open the throttle and close your eyes and travel, knowing there is nothing to crash into until you fall off the edge of the earth.

Break the journey and your astral reveries for a picnic lunch on the moon!  As the sun begins to drop, arrive at The Island of Lost Baobabs, where the Staff has set up camp; a cauldron of water bubbles for the shower suspended from a tree. The dining table is set and the drinks tray stands waiting.

Your bedrolls replete with hot water bottles and duvets have been arranged on the high places in a five gazillion star bedroom.

Enjoy a star-spangled silver service dinner and fall into bed.

DAY 4

Enjoy an early breakfast then head off for Kubu Island. This is what you have come to see. A granite extrusion island studded with baobabs, one of the most graphically beautiful spots in Botswana and rich with intriguing detail, such as walling, trade and Bushmen beads brought here to barter in pursuit of the salt that ices the surrounding pans. Filigreed with baobab trees like fat, red ballet dancers bigger than buses, older than Christ.

The place has been the holiest secret of the Kalahari Bushmen for longer than anyone knows, a place of power and ritual.  Not far away is an ancient defence fortification that was only discovered a couple of years ago. Clamber to the top for an awe-inspiring view of the enormous Sowa pan, and a picnic lunch amongst the boulders and baobabs of Kubu Island.

Visit the extinct mouth of the Zambezi, which together with various other rivers, once flowed into the Pans. The remaining beach is covered with beautiful waterworn pebbles amongst which you can find semi-precious stones such as garnets and cornelians.

Kubu is close to what is probably the biggest greater and lesser flamingo breeding site in the world.  30 000 flamingo fledge there when water is good and although nests are abandoned during the dry season, the acres of strangely shaped mud mounds are an eerie and strangely compelling sight.

Unhatched eggs remain in some of the thousands of empty nests while many chicks are left to die if they hatch too late to be able to join the long march across the Pans that the young flamingo undertake in search of water. Their remains lie on the pan surface almost petrified by the salt.

Return to camp for one last night out under the stars.

DAY 5

Set off once more across the Pans on the quad bikes, ending your desert adventure with a night of comfort back at Camp Kalahari.

DAY 6

Uncharted Africa has pioneered and passionately supported cultural tourism in Botswana since the company’s inception in 1993. It has long been our belief that it is a vitally important tool in terms of preserving this unique, but sadly fast-vanishing, culture.

We have been working closely with the Zu/’hoasi people of the Western Kalahari for many years and are privileged to have Bushmen women, men and pre-school children comprised of four generations, living at Jack’s Camp in the Makgadikgadi.

Offering a window into the past, they teach us how they have survived in this harshest of environments, using their vast and ancient knowledge of plants, animal behaviour and survival skills.

The Zu/’hoasi lead a semi-traditional lifestyle, and share their traditional hunting and food-gathering skills as well as how they make jewellery and hunting equipment, it is a glimpse into their traditional way of life, but by no means an attempt to keep them frozen in time.

Through our initiative, a community is able to work together and share their knowledge with each other and our Guests, allowing the older generation to pass the knowledge on to the next generation.

The young children are the future and we hope that they carry the knowledge and traditions of their incredible ancient culture into the modern world with a sense of pride and personal empowerment.  After breakfast, drive through the bush to the traditionally built Bushmen village; where the community gathers during the day. The huts provide shelter from the harsh Kalahari environment, but are not the community’s permanent accommodation.

On arrival, the elders of the community will meet you in a traditional manner after which you will walk out into the bush with the men, women and children.

The focus of the walk will be to provide a gentle introduction to the Kalahari and Bushmen way of life. The group will point out the distinct ecological characteristics of this area and its animal and bird species. Spontaneous gathering and discussions about the uses of plants and wildlife by your Bushmen Guides provide the link between culture and wild environment that we seek to offer our Guests.

Time for one more lunch; before you bid farewell to Camp Kalahari in preparation for your onward journey.  Meeting the Bushmen is like finding out who you really are.