Page 20 - Meetings Botswana 2024 FINAL

20 Meetings Botswana 2024
vegetation and can visit its many islands and luxury
lodges, all while marvelling at the splendour of their flora
and fauna. It is a place set for both deep reflection and
exhilarating experiences.
To the east of the delta is the Moremi Game Reserve,
situated inside the Okavango Game Reserve. This privately
owned 5,000 square kilometre reserve covers much of
the eastern side of the delta, creating some startling and
unexpected contrasts as it combines dry as well as some
permanent water catchment areas. Here, some of Africa’s
finest game viewing takes place as the best wildlife in
southern Africa regularly congregate in the area.
Further east is the Chobe National Park, another iconic
place which gives Botswana prominence as a major tourist
destination. The park is famous for its large herds of Cape
Buffaloes and elephants, especially along its Chobe River
front. It occupies an area of 11,700 square kilometres and
situated on the banks of the river is the popular five-star
Chobe Game Lodge. As the oldest in Botswana, the lodge
has hosted some of the most famous personalities in the
world, including the movie stars Richard Burton and
Elizabeth Taylor. Other major tourist experiences in the
park include seasonal Linyanti Expeditions on the banks
of the Linyanti marsh and a stay at the Savuti campsites.
Hundreds of kilometres south of the Chobe National
Park, and southeast of the Okavango Delta is the Nxai
Pan National Park, a 2,590 square kilometre grassy reserve
which is a part of the Makgadikgadi flats. The Nxai is
popular for the thousands of zebras which come to the
area, resulting in the second largest land animal migration
in Southern Africa. This is because the Park is on the
animal route between the Okavango Delta and Zimbabwe’s
Hwange National Park. A group of seven huge baobab
trees, known as Baines Baobabs, provide relief from the
heat, and high animal traffic from a waterhole nearby form
an important part of its fascinating landscape. Named
after Thomas Baines, a British landscape painter who set
camp under the trees in the mid-1800s, the baobabs have
been dated to at least 105,000 years, around which time
they are suspected to have been sitting on the edge of a
huge ancient lake. The Makgadikgadi Pans were once all
submerged in the lake, which was fed from the Okavango
Delta.
The Nxai Pan National Park is part of the Makgadikgadi
complex, comprising several salt pans which were once
ancient salt lakes. It is one of the northern access points
to the Makgadikgadi Pans National Park with its vast salt-
encrusted pans and covering as much as 16,000 square
kilometres of treeless surreal landscape. Its name means ‘a
place without life,’ and indeed it has become a paradise
for those who are in search of serenity and solitude since
people are scarce here.
One of the highlights of the Makgadikgadi Pans is the
Nata Bird Sanctuary, a 230 square kilometre community-
managed project recognized by UNESCO as one of the
largest breeding sites of flamingo in the world. After the
Above: Herds of Zebra can
be seen crossing the vast
Makgadikgadi Pans during
the wet season. Unhindered
migrations have allowed their
numbers to increase slowly
over the past decades. Image
by Steven Stockhall.
T H E W O W F A C T O R