Planet Baobab
Makgadikgadi National Park, Botswana
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Planet Baobab
- MAKGADIKGADI PANS, BOTSWANA
Along the cracked and crop-less landscape on the road between Maun and Francistown, where elephants tear up any tree that dares to raise its head, a large grey hulk looms into sight at the edge of the road. If this is an elephant it is a very peculiar one! As the eyes recognise a giant anteater, the brain begins to wonder what might have been in that last beer? Follow the side road pointed out by that anteater snout and you will discover the intriguingly named “Planet Baobab”. The Baobab capital of the world: where the average age of each tree is 4000 years and beyond and the boundless lunar landscape of the Makgadikgadi salt pans is the size of Switzerland!
Planet Baobab is home to the largest and coolest pool in the Kalahari and the funkiest bar and restaurant serving interesting and delicious dishes from all across Africa and we are “vegetarian-friendly”!
A well known watering hole for travellers of every description and the more colourful characters from Maun.
Just a stone's throw from all this beer and bustle is the elephant's paddling pool. Oblivious to Guests crouching in the nearby trees, the elephants and travellers mostly ignore each other.
The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency was filmed in Gweta – Meet the No.1 meerkats and experience something of Botswana's culture at the baobab capital of the world!
Accommodation 
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You can sleep in traditionally styled Bakalanga or Baobab huts with en suite showers, dome tents with fully made up stretcher beds, pitch your tent or park your 4 x 4 in our shady campsite, all with the best ablutions in the bush! Light your own camp fire, or gather round the communal blaze in the lelwapa and enjoy a cool drink, then sling your own boerewors onto the fire or enjoy Planet Baobab's unique Pan-African cuisine.
Room Detail:
• 8 Twin Bakalanga Huts - sleep 2, with en-suite bathrooms
• 7 Baobab Hutls - sleep 2, with en-suite bathrooms
• 3 Family Bakalanga Huts - sleep 4, with en-suite bathrooms
• 6 Twin Dome Tents - sleep 2, fully made up stretcher beds, communal ablutions
• Public Campsites - with the funkiest communal ablution facility in the Kalahari
• Overlander campsites - with equally funky communal ablution facilities
General
During the wet season see the spectacular migration. Host to between 35-75000 zebra and wildebeest, Southern Africa’s last and little-known annual migration. Botswana has the largest variety of mammals in Africa & the Kalahari is the desert with the greatest species diversity in the world...
Best of all... overnight on the Pans under the most spectacular night skies in the world, enjoying a barbecue of a lifetime. Curl up under a canopy of stars - a light which you cannot switch off.
In a continent which is full of surprises, and a place which is full of nothing, Planet Baobab is really something.
Activities
Get up close and personal with super-friendly habituated meerkats, tour the local village and learn about Batswana culture, visit a local cattle post and enjoy a delicious traditional lunch, and visit Nxai Xini Pan to seek out ancient stone tools and fossils.
Visit the famous Green’s Baobab, do a walk through a baobab forest and much much more!
During the dry season, quad bike across the Makgadikgadi Pans, sleep out under the stars or do a 5 night quad bike expedition to the remote and mysterious Kubu Island.
A fantastic opportunity to combine a stay at Planet Baobab with an epic quad bike journey across the pans and two nights spent sleeping out under the stars amongst the boulders and baobabs on Kubu Island. This crescent shaped island has terraced slopes with fossil beaches of wave-rounded pebbles, providing startling evidence of the prehistoric lake's former water levels. Crowned with an array of ancient, gnarled baobabs and surrounded on three sides by a vast grey emptiness, Kubu has a unique atmosphere, and is one of the most graphically beautiful spots in Botswana.
Not far away is an ancient defence fortification that was only discovered a couple of years ago. Clamber to the top for an awe-inspiring view of the enormous Sua pan. Visit the extinct mouth of the Zambezi, which, together with various other rivers, once flowed into the Pans. The remaining beach is covered with beautiful water-worn pebbles amongst which you can find semi-precious stones such as garnets and citrines. Dryness of the pans permitting, travel to the end of the Great Rift Valley, a 400 foot escarpment that drops off into the Makgadikgadi Pans. This is the end of the greatest of all faults, which starts in Turkey and travels along the East Coast of Africa. The Rift Valley has been arguably the reason for the development of our species. Kubu is close to what is probably the biggest greater flamingo breeding site in the world. Flamingo fledge there when water is good and although nests are abandoned during the dry season, the acres of strangely shaped mud mounds are an eerie and compelling sight.
Facilities at Kubu:
• 12 Bedrolls under the stars.
• Bucket shower & bush loo.
• All ages welcome at parental discretion.
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