Experience the remote Central Kalahari Game Reserve and the Makgadikgadi Pans National Park on this Botswana Camping Safari. Your expert guide takes you on daily game drives in an open-sided 4x4 safari vehicle, searching out the abundant wildlife of these wild habitats.
On this fully-serviced mobile camping safari, offering comfortable beds in walk-in tents with en-suite facilities, the support crew deals with all the cooking, chores, and camp arrangements. This leaves you free to simply enjoy being in the African bush, watching wildlife and birds, and taking in the beautiful landscapes. With a maximum of seven guests, all the mobile camps are set up in scenic private camping areas that are not shared with other visitors, making this a truly exclusive Botswana Camping Safari.
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Arriving in the busy town of Maun, a Moremi Air representative will meet you and check you in for your short-hop flight to Tau Pan Camp. Departure times will depend on your international flight schedule and will be confirmed closer to the time of your Botswana Camping Safari.
Upon arrival at the remote Tau Pan Camp inside Central Kalahari Game Reserve, your safari guide will welcome you. Settle into your tented room and enjoy the stunning views over the stark desert landscape. Then your guide takes you for an afternoon game drive in the Kalahari Desert. The Setswana word ‘Tau’ means lion - the name given to the camp because of the black-maned Kalahari lions who often visit it. On your game drives in the Central Kalahari, you may see oryx, wildebeest, springbok, jackals, brown hyenas, and other desert-adapted creatures, possibly even the red-crested Korhaan.
After dinner at the camp, you can relax around the campfire and soak up the tranquillity of the Kalahari Desert in Botswana. Accommodation is in comfortable en-suite tents set on raised wooden decks under thatched roofing.
Rising early, enjoy a quick energy-boosting breakfast before departing on an early morning nature walk. A great way to get a closer look at the strange desert plants and animals of Tau Pan.
We will then say goodbye to Tau Pan Camp as we head further into the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, where our base for the next three nights has been set up in a fully-serviced private camping area. The roughly 2-hour drive takes us through dry savannahs into the vast, harsh beauty of the famous Kalahari Desert. We arrive in time for a light lunch, prepared by our cook, before settling into our en-suite tents, which are set up ready, and waiting for us.
After settling into your tents, relaxing, and orienting yourself to your new surroundings, guests will depart on an afternoon game drive. Your knowledgeable guide will take you to local watering holes, searching for the best opportunities to spot the amazing range of wildlife that survives in the harsh, stark environment. Returning to camp as evening settles over the Kalahari, guests can look forward to a hot shower in their en-suite bathroom, before enjoying a sumptuous three-course dinner accompanied by excellent South African wines. The light of the campfire flickers as we enjoy a nightcap accompanied by a chorus of stars, the bark of the Kalahari gecko, and the unfamiliar sounds of the desert.
The next two days of our Botswana Camping Safari are spent with your guide, exploring the unspoiled and unforgettable landscapes of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve. Early morning and evening game drives give the best insights into this dramatic landscape and are punctuated by quality lunches and time to relax at base camp in between. Our evenings are spent chatting around the campfire with drinks after a luxurious dinner, in the timeless African tradition, and soaking up the solitude of the vast, untouched wilderness of the Central Kalahari.
Home to the renowned Kalahari lions and the nomadic San people, the 52800 km² Central Kalahari Game Reserve is the second largest in the world. The riverine valleys are ancient dried-up rivers. After a little rain, these extinct river valleys and the vast scrub savannah plains are flush with green grasses, attracting huge herds of antelope, wildebeest, zebra, springbok, and gemsbok in search of nutrition. You will see many pans - ancient flat lakebeds, contrasting vividly with the savannah scrub. You may see the famous black-maned Kalahari lions as we explore the ancient river valleys of Deception Valley and Passarge Valley. We also visit Sundays Pan, a vast crater-like pan surrounded by high dunes and dotted with islands of acacia trees which the animals use for shelter in the mid-day heat. Cheetahs, leopards, and brown hyenas are other predators attracted by the game here, and you may even be lucky enough to catch a glimpse of the endangered African wild dog.
On the morning of day 5, after an early breakfast, we drive northeast to the Makgadikgadi Pans National Park. Today our Botswana Camping Safari takes us through otherworldly lunar landscapes - the shorelines of the salt pans formed as Lake Makgadikgadi slowly evaporated into smaller and smaller lakes, millennia ago. The Makgadikgadi Pans – actually a group of separate pans - form the largest salt pan system in the world, and cover over 16 000km² of the Kalahari basin. Each year after the first rains these vast, inhospitable pans are the site of one of the largest wildlife migrations in Africa, the spectacular Makgadikgadi-Nxai zebra migration.
Our mobile camp will be set up in the grasslands northwest of the Ntwetwe Pans or further north at Baines Baobabs or Nxai Pan. We spend the next two days venturing out into the expansive Kalahari plains on morning and afternoon game drives. Despite numbering over 30,000 individual animals, the zebra migration can be elusive, and we search them out with our guide, venturing across this vast pan. Springbok, impala, gemsbok, giraffe, kudu, hartebeest, zebra, wildebeest also come for the rich grazing. Look out for the lions, bat-eared foxes, African wild dogs, and brown hyenas who are never far from their prey. You will also pay a visit to the amazing seven Baines Baobabs, which are over 1000 years old - the same trees that Thomas Baines painted when he travelled to Botswana in 1865. You’ll never forget the sight of tens of thousands of black and white striped zebra, who come to the unspoiled oasis of the Makgadikgadi Pans for the nutritious grasses and safe breeding grounds, in the huge, hostile desert.
Every day, we have lunch at base camp during the heat of the day (resting when the animals do) and return after our afternoon game drives each evening to the comfort of our camp, to relax around the fire. With no light pollution, the stars in the skies never seem to end, making a dazzling backdrop to the stillness of this remote destination.
After adjusting your natural rhythm to the gentle sunrise and sunset of the Kalahari Desert, we rise for a final early morning game drive in Makgadikgadi Pans National Park. Then we say goodbye to our fantastic support team and head to Maun where our Botswana Camping Safari finishes. Arriving in Maun at around noon, you'll be in good time for your onward journey.
This Botswana Camping Safari is also available on a private departure basis on request - please contact African Budget Safaris for more details.
Although we make every effort to keep to the safari itinerary outlined (including the activities), local conditions and availability may cause unavoidable changes. We will notify you if this should happen. If local conditions require it, we reserve the right to substitute a motorboat safari for a mokoro trip. Our rates are subject to Botswana National Park rates, which may be adjusted without notice by the Government of Botswana.
All the transport on safari is in custom open 4x4 vehicles. To ensure that all guests have a window seat, the tour is limited to seven people. The vehicles have high game-viewing seats, shade roofs and long-range fuel tanks and are driven by your expert guide, who is with you throughout the safari. The fantastic support crew, including your cook, travel in a separate vehicle, assembling and taking down the mobile camp, and taking care of all the work.
This tour does take children.
While the minimum age on group scheduled departures is 12 years old, private safaris are possible with children from 8 years and older.
Please contact African Budget Safaris for further information.
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