BOTSWANA SAFARI VACATIONS
Most visitors to Botswana are attracted by two very different, yet equally intriguing areas - the Okavango Delta and the Kalahari Desert. The great Kalahari Desert covers over 80% of Botswana, and is home to a very specialised flora and fauna. One thinks of desert as harsh and apparently inhospitable, yet the Kalahari supports a great number of species, and is extremely rich in wildlife. In fact, the Kalahari is a semi-arid zone of sands, savannah and grasslands, and stretches from the southern reaches of the Congo to the Orange River in the Cape. The primitive landscapes and wide horizons are intensely powerful and touch a chord with many travellers. Vast salt pans pepper the surface in the most arid areas, and it is here, often during the wet season but also at other times, that the Kalahari wildlife gather. In these arid regions the antelope species include eland, springbok, gemsbok, steenbok, hartebeest and duiker. Giraffe, kudu, warthog, jackal, hyena and bat-eared fox are also able to exist without copious water.
The Kalahari is also famous for its Bushmen, or San people, traditional hunter-gatherers who are said to live the lifestyle closest to that of the people of the Stone Age. Only found in Botswana, Namibia and Angola in any numbers, these people are now finding it necessary to move into the twentieth century and theirs is a way of life which it will not be possible to observe for many more years.
The Okavango Delta is home to one of the greatest concentrations of wildlife in Africa. Fed by the Okavango River which, rather eccentrically, does not flow into the sea, this is the greatest inland river delta in the world. The Delta is not the place for abundant big game. However, the crystal clear waters and little islets shelter and support an astoundingly rich and varied bird and plant life, and there is a multitude of smaller animals. The ideal way to get around is in the traditional mokoro, a dug-out canoe, in which you may paddle your way around the tangle of waterways that form this fascinating ecological system.
Chobe National Park, an area of rolling grassland, is near to the Delta and is renowned for its vast elephant population. The enormous Makgadikgadi Pans, once a great lake, offer flocks of rosy flamingos, herds of blue wildebeest and various antelope.
Botswana offers a great deal to travellers - a fascinating culture and eco-system exists in a very largely unspoilt country. The soft green delta, the red sands of the Kalahari, vast herds of elephant, wonderful birdlife, a rich variety of game, hunter-gatherers in the desert and modern businessmen in Gaborone, the capital - they are all to be found here. What you will also find is a warm welcome!
OKAVANGO DELTA
The Okavango Delta (or Okavango Swamp), in Botswana, is the world's largest inland delta. It is formed where the Okavango River empties onto a swamp in an endorheic basin in the Kalahari Desert, where most of the water is lost to evaporation and transpiration instead of draining into the sea.
The Okavango Delta is a subject to seasonal flooding. The Okavango river drains the summer (January-February) rainfall from the Angola highlands and the surge flows 1,200 kilometres in approximately one month. The waters then spread over the 250 km by 150 km area of the delta over the next four months (March-June). The high temperature of the delta causes rapid transpiration and evaporation, resulting in a cycle of rising and falling water level that was not fully understood until the early 20th century.
The flood peaks between June and August, during Botswana's dry winter months, when the delta swells to three times its permanent size, attracting animals from miles around and creating one of Africa's greatest concentrations of wildlife.