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Botswana is well known for the lushly vegetated wetlands of the Okavango Delta and the remarkable
wildlife found there. Easily combined with the Pygmy Kingfisher Safari, a Botswana fly-in safari
organised by Expert Africa or as your only holiday experience in Botswana, this Kingfisher Safari
offers the chance to explore the less known, but no less spectacular, Kalahari Desert’s Nxai Pan.
Together with your fantastic safari guide you can search out desert-adapted animals amongst the vegetated
dunes and marvel at the history surrounding the beautiful Baines’ Baobabs which have remained unchanged for
thousands of years.
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Striped Kingfisher Safari Summary:
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| Day 1 |
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Maun to Nxai Pan, adventurer camp |
| Day 2 & 3 |
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Nxai Pan Park, adventurer camp |
| Day 4 |
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Nxai Pan to Maun |
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DETAILED ITINERARY:
Day 1 – Maun to Nxai Pan
Your safari guide will be at Maun Airport to welcome you when you arrive, usually in the late morning.
Alternatively, if you spent the previous night in Maun as part of a longer holiday to Botswana, you will be
transferred from your accommodation after breakfast.
From Maun you will drive east through rural Botswana, passing villages and cattle posts, before reaching the
fence that separates cattle from the wildlife of Nxai Pan National Park. The drive from Maun to the park border
lasts around 1½ hours, from this point onward, your game viewing experience begins.
After a further 3 hours, depending on what you see, you will arrive at your private mobile Adventurer safari camp
set up overlooking Nxai Pan. A great spot from which to enjoy watching the sun set with a gin and tonic in hand!
Day 2 & 3 – Nxai Pan National Park
The Kalahari Desert pans around Nxai Pan are fossilized and covered with short nutritious grasses and stunted
acacia trees, creating areas rich in wildlife surrounded by vegetated dune savannahs. This fascinating park is
often underrated because of the unpredictability of its game sightings. During the dry season (June to October)
there is a good population of springbok, giraffe, gemsbok and a smattering of hartebeest – animals not often seen
in the Okavango Delta and Botswana’s northern regions. This in turn attracts predators such as the magnificent
black-maned Kalahari lions, cheetah and both brown and spotted hyena. Spending time watching a waterhole often
yields exciting results!
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The animal populations can more than double after good rains (December to April) when the welcome moisture turns
the park into a veritable salad bowl for herbivores. As there are no lodges in Nxai Pan National Park this area
can only be visited on a mobile safari.
Close by is an extraordinary beautiful group of trees known as Baines’ Baobabs, which stand on an island at a
spectacular site on the eastern edge of the Kudiakam Pan. They were immortalised in a painting by Thomas Baines
who came here in May 1862 and have altered very little since then. The site around the island has been dated to
about 105,000 – 128,000 years old, around which time it stood at the edge of the great super-lake. You only need
to stand here to feel the history around these ancient trees.
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Day 4 – Nxai Pan to Maun
After breakfast, you begin your game drive back towards the main road to Maun. You reach Maun Airport in time
for your scheduled homeward flight to the UK; or, if you are combining this with another safari, you will be
transferred to your next accommodation.
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Departures:
Cost is per person sharing, departing and returning Maun
There is no single supplement on this trip.
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| 30/07/08 - 02/08/08 | £578 | | 08/08/08 - 11/08/08 | £578 | | 11/08/08 - 14/08/08 | £578 | | 20/08/08 - 23/08/08 | £578 | | 23/08/08 - 26/08/08 | £578 | | 26/08/08 - 29/08/08 | £578 | | 29/08/08 - 01/09/08 | £578 | | 10/09/08 - 13/09/08 | £578 | | 16/09/08 - 19/09/08 | £578 | | 22/09/08 - 25/09/08 | £578 | | 25/09/08 - 28/09/08 | £578 | | 04/10/08 - 07/10/08 | £578 | | 07/10/08 - 10/10/08 | £578 | | 16/10/08 - 19/10/08 | £578 | | 22/10/08 - 25/10/08 | £578 | | 25/10/08 - 28/10/08 | £578 | | 31/10/08 - 03/11/08 | £578 | | 03/11/08 - 06/11/08 | £578 | | 12/11/08 - 15/11/08 | £578 | | 15/11/08 - 18/11/08 | £578 | | | |
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This itinerary can be downloaded from our Downloads Page
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