The thing that struck me most about Makgadikgadi wasn't the vastness of the...

Brisson Nathaniel
@nathanielbrisson4958
6 days ago

The thing that struck me most about Makgadikgadi wasn't the vastness of the salt pans, though that is incredible. It was the silence. I mean a complete, heavy quiet that you don't get anywhere else. When the wind stops, you can hear your own heartbeat. I remember walking out onto the pan at sunset and just standing there. No birds, no insects, just me and the horizon in every direction.

If you go, bring a GPS or a local guide who knows the pans. It sounds obvious but the landscape is so flat and uniform that it's genuinely easy to get disoriented. The tracks disappear after a dusting of rain. I learned that the hard way when a storm rolled in from nowhere and we had to wait it out in the truck. Also, don't skip the nearby Boteti River. In the dry season, you'll see herds of zebra and wildebeest moving along the water, and the contrast between the green riverine strip and the white, cracked salt is something else.

For accommodation, I'd recommend staying at one of the mobile safari camps that set up seasonally on the pans themselves. Sleeping out under the stars there is a different kind of experience. The sky is so dark and wide that the Milky Way looks like a painted stripe overhead. Pack warm clothes even in summer, because once the sun goes down, the temperature drops fast on that exposed salt crust.

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