Nxai Pans National Park

Nxai Pan National Park is located on the north eastern part of Botswana specifically at the northern periphery of the ancient Makgadikgadi basin. Thousands of years back, Nxai Pan, Lake Ngami, Xau, Mababe Depression, Ntwetwe Pan, Sua Pan and the Okavango Delta were all a collective part of the enormous Makgadikgadi lake which is now dried up.

This African safari park in Botswana covered about 2578 sq. km in 1992 when it was officially declared as a national park from its original reserve designation serving an area of 1676 sq. km in 1970 with the now an extension inclusion of Baines’s Baobabs area. To this day, the Baines’s Baobabs remained painted as they were over 150 years ago and continue to be one of the main attractions of the park and serves as an excellent Botswana safari destination for the artists, celebrities, royals such as Prince Charles who have painted there.

The Baines’s Baobabs were named after Thomas Baines who painted them in May 1862. The Nxai Pan and Kgama-Kgama Pan at the northeast, and Baines’ Baobabs and Kudiakam Pan to the south constitute the Nxai Pan National Park.

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Baines Baobabs

Baines Baobabs is situated approximately 30 kilometres from the Nxai Pan National Park entrance, and it is a highlight for any visitor travelling to this area of Botswana.The centre of attraction are the seven huge, gnarled baobab trees, which are situated on an island overlooking and surrounded by the white, crusty Kudiakam Pan. Baines stood and painted this otherworldly scene over a hundred years ago and the Baobabs were named after explorer Thomas Baines. This scene has remained unchanged over centuries.

Thomas Baines was an explorer, artist, naturalist and cartographer. He and fellow explorer James Chapman travelled through this area during their two-year journey from Namibia to Victoria Falls (1861-63).Baines’ account of his journey is filled with appreciation of the beauty of africa. ‘I confess,’ he wrote, ‘I can never quite get over the feeling that the wonderful products of nature are objects to be admired rather than destroyed; and this, I am afraid, sometimes keeps me looking at a buck when I ought to be minding my hindsights.

’Baines’ painting of the small island of baobabs shows covered wagons, people tending their horses, and a huge baobab bursting with leaves. ‘We walked forward to the big tree, the Mowana at Mamu ka Hoorie, and found the country much improved,’ Baines wrote of the gloriously shaded area.