A relic of one of the world's largest super-lakes, Botswana’s Makgadikgadi dried up thousands of years ago as a result of the continued shifting of the earth's crust. When the lake was formed, some five to seven million years ago, its shores were the setting for the mysterious transition from ape to man.

On four-wheel-drive quad bikes guests can venture far into the centre of Botswana’s Makgadikgadi Pans. Remote archaeological sites can be found, periodically discovering never-before-documented fossil beds of extinct giant zebra and hippo. The fact that you can travel across the pans at great speed and still arrive nowhere only underlines the pan's immensity. There is nothing out there, absolutely nothing. No outcrops, no features, no grass, no trees, no sound but the crunch of your boots in the crust.

For a few months each year, the Makgadikgadi transforms into one of the most important wetland sites in Africa. When Botswana’s rains come, the pans fill with water and they become the breeding ground for huge flocks of flamingo and other migratory birds. The rains also regenerate the grasses, which attract the last surviving migration of zebra and wildebeest in southern Africa.

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