Botswana

Known for the Okavango Delta and the Kalahari Desert, two iconic African landscapes with a vast array of wildlife, Botswana is certainly one of the best photo safari destinations on the continent. Its territory is home to numerous herds of elephants, making it the country with the highest concentration of pachyderms in the world, felines roaming undisturbed and numerous other species, from rare wild dogs to sitatunga antelopes, rhinos and abundant birdlife.

The Okavango Delta is one of the largest inland deltas in the world, where the river of the same name has its source in Angola and after a journey of more than 1,000 kilometres discharges its waters directly into the sands of the Kalahari, forming an alluvial plain characterised by channels, lagoons and islands, with an exuberant fauna and flora. The ideal way to fully appreciate its landscapes is to board a mokoro, a wooden canoe, and travel through the shallow waters of the delta, spotting hippos, crocodiles and elephants.

Around this area are some of the country’s most important parks: the Moremi Game Reserve, with its ”big five” and an important population of wild dogs; the Chobe National Park, with its 120,000 pachyderms; the Makgadikgadi Pans, with its herds of wildebeest and zebra; and the Nxai Pans, famous for its easy sightings of cheetahs.

The Kalahari Desert, divided between Botswana, Namibia and South Africa, is home to the Central Kalahari Wildlife Reserve, the second largest in the world, characterised by plains covered by bush and grasses, where big cats can be spotted in search of their prey.

But Botswana is not just about its natural wealth.

In fact, in the arid areas at the edge of the desert, live the San people, also known as Bushmen, an ethnic group of hunter-gatherers, famous for their system of gestural communication during the hunt and for their poisoned arrows, which has earned them the nickname of ”scorpion men”. And it is the ancestors of this people who have left us the Tsodilo Hills archaeological site, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, described as the ”Louvre of the Desert”, with 4,500 examples of rock art, with paintings dating back up to 20,000 years.