Botswana
By taking a luxury safari holiday to Botswana one enters a wild and prosperous country that makes the right decisions for the right reasons. A country of good governance, that has set aside the highest percentage of land for conservation in the world. Most of the population lives in the south and east, leaving vast areas of unspoilt wild spaces absolutely empty and undisturbed, except for the animals that have lived there since time began. These are not tamed areas, rehabilitated by the reintroduction of wildlife, but areas where the wild things have never left. The cycle of life is intact and in perfect balance.
Botswana is a land of deserts, but is also a land of contradiction. One of the most fertile and abundant places on earth, the Okavango Delta sparkles like an emerald in the heart of the dry and arid Kalahari. The Kalahari, which is so incredibly dry that for eight to nine months of the year all true desert creatures have to rely on their creativity and cunning to survive. For the remaining three or four months it becomes a land of plenty and the natural world comes to life. As quickly as the rains come, so the waters disappear soaked up by the deep Kalahari sands. Just before everything becomes completely parched, miraculous water appears in the Okavango Delta again, seemingly from nowhere; water that fell six months before in another world, deep in the Angolan highlands.
For most social animals, when the chips are down and the en.....
By taking a luxury safari holiday to Botswana one enters a wild and prosperous country that makes the right decisions for the right reasons. A country of good governance, that has set aside the highest percentage of land for conservation in the world. Most of the population lives in the south and east, leaving vast areas of unspoilt wild spaces absolutely empty and undisturbed, except for the animals that have lived there since time began. These are not tamed areas, rehabilitated by the reintroduction of wildlife, but areas where the wild things have never left. The cycle of life is intact and in perfect balance.
Botswana is a land of deserts, but is also a land of contradiction. One of the most fertile and abundant places on earth, the Okavango Delta sparkles like an emerald in the heart of the dry and arid Kalahari. The Kalahari, which is so incredibly dry that for eight to nine months of the year all true desert creatures have to rely on their creativity and cunning to survive. For the remaining three or four months it becomes a land of plenty and the natural world comes to life. As quickly as the rains come, so the waters disappear soaked up by the deep Kalahari sands. Just before everything becomes completely parched, miraculous water appears in the Okavango Delta again, seemingly from nowhere; water that fell six months before in another world, deep in the Angolan highlands.
For most social animals, when the chips are down and the environment is your greatest enemy, your only chance of survival is to help one another. This works for the meerkats of the great Makgadikgadi Salt Pans, a large, awe-inspiring expanse of white nothingness. The unchanging habits of the Kalahari San bushmen and their unique spirit of reciprocal altruism and a truly environmentally sustainable way of life is what has allowed them to survive the challenges of living in the Kalahari for millennia.
When taking a luxury African safari in Botswana what becomes apparent is its diversity, from the delta and desert, to the large flat Chobe River meandering through the place where four countries meet. It is a country that can offer more than just tours to see amazing wildlife, it can also offer culture, not only that of the local people of Botswana, but also that of the first ever people, the bushmen. It is a country that can offer solutions and inspiration.
