Place to see: Mgadikgadi, Francistown, Botswana

About this place:

This is a complex of saltpans, a huge, flat expanses of hot, sun-baked terrain fringed by vegetated islands on vast shallow inland seas. For the majority of the year, the pans are dry and desolate – the only remains of the vast super lake that once covered over 60 000 square kiometres of the area. However, when the rain comes in late November the salty wilderness undergoes a radical transformation. Thousands of water birds come to the shallow pools, especially flamingos and pelicans, turning the pans pink with their vast numbers. Despite the inhospitable appearance, these pans also support a number of plains game and is the only place in Southern Africa where you are able to see a migration of tens of thousands of wildebeest and zebra, followed by predators. Kubu Island is the most famous of all the rock islands in the Makgadikgadi, rising 20 metres above the pan. There are silent fossil beaches, four species of baobab, including the red baobab and a very mysterious stonewall surrounding some areas.