Bless me, dear readers, for I have sinned. It’s been more than two months since my last blog post. Yoh, guys, it’s been a year.

Anyway, things are finally looking up. I’ve just returned from an epic road trip across Botswana and I have many exciting stories to share. First up is Planet Baobab, mythical land of 4000-year-old baobabs, stark-white salt pans, scorpion-hunting meerkats, and a giant aardvark.

I’m excited to tell you all about this road trip, which included: 12 nights; 4 badass ladies; 7 lodges; and 2,500+ kilometers driven — all in a five-door Suzuki Jimny, named “Taylene the Aardwolf”, from Tread Lite 4×4 hire.

A map of our route.

What Is Planet Baobab?

Planet Baobab is a lodge and camp ground in the small village of Gweta, on the remote outskirts of the Makgadikgadi Pans — one of the biggest salt flats on earth. Planet Baobab is also just a couple of hours from Maun, gateway to the Okavango Delta, where we were headed. True to its name, the lodge is surrounded by more than a dozen enormous baobabs, including one particularly huge one that houses the Planet Baobab bar.

I think a lot of people use Gweta as a quick stopover on the way to Zimbabwe, Zambia, or places further north in Botswana. We chose to stay for two nights, so we could visit the salt pan and soak in some otherworldly baobab vibes. Planet Baobab is the perfect name for this place; it really feels like another planet.

A quick note on logistics: Gweta is 1,000 kilometers from Joburg, with some tricky roads to navigate along the way; it’s really not possible to do that journey in one day. We spent the previous night in Francistown (about 8.5 hours from Joburg and 4 hours from Gweta) at the Woodlands Stop Over Lodge, which I definitely recommend.

After a few delays involving a flat tire, a foreign credit card payment dispute, many potholes of varying size, and a few visits with ostriches hanging out beside the highway, we arrived at Planet Baobab just in time to depart for a night out on the Ntwetwe pan. The salt pan excursion also involved driving quad bikes and visiting a semi-habituated colony of meerkats, which we were all extremely excited about. We ate a quick lunch, met our guide, Albert, and our fellow guests, and piled into a safari vehicle.

The Meerkats of the Makgadikgadi

We reached the meerkat colony about an hour into the drive, right on the edge of the pan, just as the afternoon light was at its best. I met a meerkat colony once before in South Africa, but this was a very different experience: Instead of watching the meerkats emerge from their dens in the early morning (which was also amazing), we experienced the group running around and hunting at a more active time of the day.

This meerkat colony is habituated to humans, which means the meerkats are used to having humans around and don’t run away from them. We were able to get out of the safari vehicle and actually walk among the meerkats. But like the habituated mountain gorillas in Rwanda and Uganda, these are wild meerkats who have never been fed or touched by humans — they ignored our presence and just went about their business.

The highlight of the meerkat visit was watching a member of the colony dig underground, capture a huge scorpion, then kill and eat said scorpion. Apparently meerkat pups are gradually introduced to scorpion venom in small amounts so they can develop a tolerance to it as adults.

A Night Out on the Pan

Night was approaching, so we reluctantly left the meerkats and drove to a small homestead at the edge of the pan, where my three friends and I boarded our quad bikes. The bikes are automatic and relatively easy to drive. Albert drove the safari vehicle with the two other guests (who weren’t doing the quad bike experience) and we followed him out onto the pan.

The salt pans fill with water during the rainy season, but at this time of year they are still bone-dry, creating the perfect environment for a camp-out. There are very few animals of any kind, including bugs, that can live on the pans in the dry season.

We didn’t reach our camp in time for sunset (I think this was my fault for driving too slowly), so we stopped briefly to watch the sun go down before continuing on.

We drove seven or eight kilometers total on the quad bikes before reaching our camp, which was truly magical. There was nothing there but a campfire with a few chairs, a small bathroom tent with a composting toilet, and a bed roll — like a sleeping bag but way more comfortable — for each of us to sleep in. Accent, our camp manager, had set everything up in advance and cooked a braai dinner. After dinner we all went to bed, cozy and comfortable inside our bed rolls (the air was cool but not terribly cold), staring out at a bright, upside-down bowl of stars.

There was no moon when we went to sleep. But I woke up very late (or very early) and happened to catch a waning moon sliver climbing over the horizon. The moon was a bizarre orangey red color — perhaps lit by the sun, which would soon rise behind it. I almost thought I was dreaming but Laureen saw it too.

We got up at sunrise, had coffee and a muffin, and Albert gave us a quick, informative geology lesson about the salt pans. Then we boarded the quad bikes and headed back to Planet Baobab.

Back at Planet Baobab

After two days and nights of crazy traveling, we were thrilled to have a day at Planet Baobab to catch our breath and enjoy the lodge. We stayed in the Bakalanga huts, which are super beautiful and comfortable (also mercifully air-conditioned — it was insanely hot). We spent the day shaking the salt out of our clothes and drinking Savannas by the pool.

The next day we packed up and headed to the Okavango Delta, which I’ll tell you all about in a future post.

Final Notes on Planet Baobab

1) A night in a Bakalanga Hut costs $195 per person, including breakfast and dinner. Drinks are extra. This may seem on the expensive side by South African standards, but it’s worth it for the unique location alone. (Also, traveling to this part of Botswana is extremely expensive generally — I’ll get into that in the next post.) Camping costs about $10 per person.

2) The overnight experience in the salt pan, including the meerkat visit, quad bikes, expert guiding, dinner, and breakfast, is $325 per person. Again, I think this is really reasonable for such a unique and amazing experience. We didn’t receive much communication in advance about what we needed to bring with us for this outing; I recommend a small backpack, a scarf to cover your mouth while on the quad bike, several thin layers of clothing, a headlamp, a change of underwear, a pair of flip-flops or sandals, something clean to sleep in, and a toothbrush. You really don’t need much — you can leave your larger bags back at the lodge or in your car.

3) You don’t need a 4×4 car to reach Planet Baobab (it’s right off the main road), but be prepared to navigate potholes. We were very happy to have our 4×4 Suzuki from Tread Lite, which I’ll also tell you about in the next post.

Stay tuned for more stories from Botswana.