Waiting For Water

With north-eastern Botswana heading into its rainy season, Makgadikgadi is the place to be for a wildlife spectacle.

When the late explorer and crocodile hunter Jack Bousfield asked what lay in Botswana’s Makgadikgadi, he was told, “Nothing – only idiots go there.” “Fine,” he said, “that’s the place for me.”

Located beneath Chobe in the north-east part of the Kalahari Basin, the Makgadikgadi spans more than 30,000km² of dry savanna, baobab forests and the massive eponymous salt pan, a convergence of three ancient super lakes – the Sua, Nxai and Ntwetwe complexes – that began to evaporate some 10,000 years ago, leaving behind a crusty flatland the size of Switzerland. By day, it’s a shimmering sea of hardened sand, and at night, a silvery moonscape that possesses a bewitching aura, which invariably sends a hush over visitors the first time they encounter it.

For most of the year, the land lies parched, seemingly devoid of life, but as the seasonal rains begin to fall between November and March, the pans fill with water and a sensational transformation occurs. It becomes a haven for a multitude of migratory birds like the greater and lesser flamingo and countless desert-adapted creatures, including 30,000 zebra and wildebeest that traipse great distances to graze on the nutritious, mineral-rich vegetation. After the Serengeti, this is the world’s second largest terrestrial migration through one of the most important ephemeral wetlands in Africa, and it’s a magnificent sight.

Elevated view