Kalahari—an unspoilt wilderness

The Kalahari is a vast semi-desert that covers more than three-quarters of the whole land area of Botswana. It is a great wilderness where the intrepid traveller can find isolation and marvel at pristine Africa. It covers a vast area including the dazzling white saltpans under the baobab trees and savannah where the game is plentiful. The original San inhabitants, some of whom still live in the desert today, have left their indelible imprint.

The word Kalahari is an Anglicised corruption of the Setswana name Kgalagadi. It is a huge semi-desert region in southern Africa stretching from South Africa through Namibia, into Angola and comprising the entire western and central regions of Botswana. It is one of the largest areas of semi-desert in the world.

The Kalahari was formed over 60 million years ago when Africa became a continent. Three major basins were formed in the interior—the Chad basin in the north, the Congo basin in central Africa and the largest of the three, the Kalahari basin, in the south, which covers 80% of the land surface of Botswana.

In the millions of years that followed, the basin became a great super lake. Then it gradually dried out and filled up with wind-blown sand, debris and fossils. The Kalahari today is not the popular image of a desert of rolling sand dunes as far as the eye can see. Though the whole basin is sand-based and dunes are plentiful in Namibia, Botswana is now largely covered in bush, trees and grasses, growing precariously on the poor, sandy soil. Conditions are arid and rainfall is low. Nature is precariously balanced in an eternal struggle for survival.

Because the land is useless for agriculture it remains virtually untouched, as it has been for 60 million years. It is still a vast wilderness where man can wonder with a sense of awe at the empty landscape stretching from one horizon to another, and marvel at the scale and majesty of Africa. This effect is especially dramatic in the bleached white saltpans, in the centre of the country.

Traces of man's occupation of the Kalahari go back at least 25,000 years. Tools dating back as far as the Stone Age are revealed by erosion and the Kalahari winds. The Khoi (Hottentot) and the San (Bushmen) were the first modern inhabitants of southern Africa. Their rock paintings, tools and pottery can be found in the Tsodilo hills and the Lepokole hills in the east and in other rocky parts of the Kalahari. Today, their present population has dwindled, but some San still live and follow their traditional lifestyle as hunter-gatherers in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve and other parts of the Kalahari.

In the right season and the right place visitors can see huge herds of animals following ancient migrations. Some animals are particularly adapted to the arid conditions. The distinctively-marked gemsbok, with their long straight horns, gave the name to the Gemsbok National Park (now called the Kgalagadi Trans-Frontier Park, see box) on Botswana's south-west border with South Africa. The gemsbok is superbly adapted to the Kalahari, as it needs no water apart from the moisture it gets from the vegetation it eats. The park is also famous for its magnificent black-maned lions and for the barking geckos, which leave their shelter for the last few hours of the day. Other species of game and their attendant predators only venture on to the Kalahari savannah when the conditions are right after the rains.

There are four major national parks in the Kalahari and many conservation areas linked to them that help protect the delicate eco-systems. Nature also protects itself because the game is most plentiful after the rains when the tracks and trails across the desert are wet and treacherous, deterring the tourists. In the first few months of the year the rains attract thousands of springbok, gemsbok and wildebeest, followed by lions and cheetah. The most experienced safari travellers prefer to travel from February to April when it can be wet. Later in the year driving conditions improve when the land dries out.

In the middle of Botswana lie the main saltpans, which were once part of the ancient lake Makgadikgadi. The lake has long since dried up but new rainfall, leaching the salts from the land, continually evaporates, leaving crystallised salt deposited in the depressions. The huge tracts of white salt stretching outwards under the gnarled shapes of the baobab trees are one of the wonders of Botswana.

Makgadikgadi and Nxai Pan National Park
The Makgadikgadi and Nxai national pans were integrated into the Makgadikgadi and Nxai national park in 1993. During the middle of the 19th century, the explorer Dr David Livingstone arrived and gave publicity to the area. This brought traders and explorers flocking in. Some left their mark on the famous baobab trees. The Green brothers announced their arrival by carving the words "Green's Expedition 1858-59" on one of the famous trees. It is still clearly visible today. Later, another group of seven baobabs were immortalised by the artist Thomas Baines in his paintings in 1861.

The Makgadikgadi pans cover about 10,000 square km in nothing but salt. Some are enormous, others the size of small ponds. Around them are vast grasslands fringed with palm trees. The pans flood after the rains early in the year. Immediately the desert blooms attracting thousands of water birds to the shallow pools. The flamingos and pelicans flock to the salty waters and the animals of the plains to the fresh grasses. The flamingos migrate from as far away as East Africa to filter the newly released nourishment and algae from the waters.

The Nxai pans were once part of the great lake that covered central Botswana, but now they are mostly fossil pans, covered with good grasslands rather than salt. In the wet season, after December, the game is plentiful with large herds of gemsbok, springbok, zebra and wildebeest and many lion, cheetah and hyena.

Khutse Game Reserve
Khutse is the nearest part of the Kalahari to the capital Gaborone. It is just 240km north-west of Gaborone via Molepole and Letlhakeng. It is a small park by Kalahari standards, covering only 2,590km. It was established in 1971—the second game reserve to be established on tribal land in Botswana.

The name Khutse means "place where you can kneel down to drink", which shows that the surface water in the area has supported man and animals over the ages. It was part of a river system that once flowed north-eastwards to fill lake Makgadikgadi. Now there are a series of pans which fill up with water during the rains, and two artificial water points, which attract game throughout the year. Visitors can sit near the pans and watch the herds drinking stalked by big cats—sometimes black-maned lions. Springbok, gemsbok and ostriches are plentiful. Eland and giraffe are also a common sight. There are more than 20 designated campsites at Khutse but some are most primitive, even lacking fresh water.

Central Kalahari Game Reserve
The 52,800 sq km reserve in the Ghanzi district of central Botswana is one of the largest protected areas in Africa, most of which is totally inaccessible. Though some San people still live there the area is only seen by a handful of visitors each year. This makes the experience, far from the modern world and madding crowd, unusual and exclusive.

Mobile safaris in the region can be difficult even in the best conditions when the land is drying out in mid-year; at other times it can be positively dangerous except for experienced safari drivers travelling in pairs of four-wheel drive vehicles.

Yet the adventure is worth it as the traveller experiences endless dunes, dry fossil valleys and grassy plains under Africa's burning sun and cobalt blue skies. In Deception Valley and numerous pans nearby the game is plentiful in the first few months of the year. The first flush of green vegetation attracts thousands of springbok, gemsbok and wildebeest, ostrich, giraffe, leopard, lion and cheetah and lots of smaller cats. As the game gather at the infrequent waterholes there is often the chance of witnessing a dramatic chase and kill.

Kgalagadi Trans-Frontier Park
Previously known as the Gemsbok National Park, the new Kgalagadi Trans-Frontier Park, covering an area of 32,000 sq. km, straddles the South African border. It was known as the Mabuasehube-Gemsbok National Park in Botswana and the Kalahari Gemsbok National Park in South Africa. The new bi-national Trans-Frontier Park was opened in May 2000. It is now managed as a single unit with the active co-operation of both countries and marks a new trend in political, ecological and tourism development.

No longer is the political priority to protect national boundaries and keep the game away from domesticated livestock. Nor does the border block animal migration routes. Instead the new park is run as a single ecological unit allowing people and animals to move freely between the two nations. This allows tourists and traffic to pass freely both ways, promoting a "culture of peace" after decades of political and economic conflict.

The area is one of Africa's last great wildernesses. Much of it is desert with beautiful red dunes and waterholes that attract gemsbok and other desert wildlife. The Gemsbok National Park section is accessible by crossing the Nossob River from Bokspits on the South African border and the Kalahari Gemsbok National Park. Access to the Mabuasehube National Park can be made, with difficulty, from Botswana. The most direct access is the little used track from the Khakea—Werda road. It can also be accessed from the north from Kang and Tshane and from the south from Tshabong.

Now the parks have been joined they cover a total area of 38,000 sq km and Botswana has done much to encourage tourists into the area by developing new trails, accessible by 4WD, campsites and game viewing tracks.

Mabuasehube offers dramatic landscapes of great grasslands and ever shifting, strangely coloured sand dunes where a wide variety of game has adapted itself to near desert conditions. The park is famous for its unique black-maned lions. Hartebeest, gemsbok, eland, springbok and wildebeest can be found with their attendant predators while over 50 different species of raptors patrol the skies.

KALAHARI—UNSPOILT WILDERNESS An unspoilt wilderness offering total escape from modern civilisation Virtually untouched for over 60 million years Man has lived there since the Stone Age and left his paintings and artefacts The sparkling white saltpans are one of the wonders of the world Animals are attracted to the fresh pans after the rains The black-maned lions are only found in the Kalahari

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