Anthony is a renowned Africa expert and author of many Lonely Planet guidebooks, including the 'Botswana & Namibia' guide.
Anthony is a renowned Africa expert and author of the 'Botswana & Namibia' Lonely Planet guide.
Anthony is the author of the 'Botswana & Namibia' Lonely Planet guide.
The Central Kalahari Game Reserve is Botswana’s biggest reserve and is situated in the middle of the Kalahari Desert. This is pure, untrammeled wilderness. The inhospitable desert habitat doesn’t support the wide variety of safari animals found in greener destinations – but sightings in this arid landscape are special.
Big herds of desert-adapted antelope, such as springbok and oryx, can be seen walking along the dunes. Predators are easy to spot on the plains. The Kalahari black-maned lions are particularly stunning, and cheetah thrive in this open country. Lucky visitors might even come across a pack of wild dogs or a solitary honey badger.
The scenery can be monotonous but the endless horizons – as the sun gets low in the sky and afternoon colors soften – are mesmerizing. The landscape is a mix of straggly bushes, including the desert-adapted silver terminalia, patches of acacias, pans and fossil riverways interspersed with dunes. In the Wet season, the inter-dune valleys transform to green.
Weather & Climate
The desert climate of the Central Kalahari is at its most testing in the Dry season (April to October), with average daytime temperatures peaking at 33°C/91°F. The only exception is early in the morning, when you’ll need to rug up against the chill if you’re doing a game drive. The Wet season (November to March) cools things down with its intermittent showers.
For prime wildlife viewing and fewer crowds, you should avoid the driest times of year and visit in the Wet season (November to March). Besides the low-season prices, this is also when animals make the most of the returning rain by gathering around the pans in Deception Valley. The trade-off is that some roads can turn into muddy bogs.
Paul is a travel writer, author of the Bradt guidebook to Zimbabwe and is closely involved in promoting tourism to Zimbabwe.
Wild and Wonderful
3/5
This reserve, the second largest in the world, is the ultimate get-away-from-it-all, wilderness destination. It is of course, desert so if you visit in the extremely arid dry season you’ll see vast expanses of sand, dunes, dry river beds...
Less mammals than other places, food resource are scarce, animal are kept in with artificial warterhole, huge herds migrating have been depleted by fence system in the country, but loneliness sensation is unique