You’ll spend your first two days at San Camp, an impossibly romantic hideaway on the edge of the iconic Nwetwe Pan in the Makgadikgadi. Here, the magic is in the minimalism, both at the camp and in the desert landscape. You can forget the tourist crowds and over-stuffed 4x4s too; it’s just you, the wildlife, and a handful of local San Bushmen, waiting to share their secrets with you. Meerkats pop up from the desert dust, brown hyena hide in the grass, and you’ll see red hartebeest, springbok and gemsbok scurrying between them. But San Camp isn’t just about wildlife-watching, it’s about the atmosphere and the ethereal surroundings and with 360-degree panoramas so vast, you can see the curvature of the earth.

Open throttle, close your eyes & travel… there is nothing to crash into! After an early breakfast, wrap a kikoi around your head in the style of Jack Bousfield and set off on the quad bikes across Ntwetwe Pan for The Lost Island of Baobabs, your campsite for the next two nights. The journey to and from the heart of the Makgadikgadi Salt Pans is a heroic adventure crossing roughly 450 kilometres of salt crusted earth. In convoy, you will barrel across the vast lunar expanses of scorched white earth. As the day heats up, you will break the journey for a picnic lunch. Here on the pan you will lose contact with time, space and direction.

As the sun begins to drop, arrive at The Lost Island of Baobabs, where the support team has set up camp. Your bedrolls replete with hot water bottles and duvets have been arranged in your five gazillion star bedroom.

Wake up to an early breakfast then head off for Kubu Island. This is what you have come to see. A granite extrusion island studded with baobabs, one of the most graphically beautiful spots in Botswana and rich with intriguing detail, such as walling, trade and Bushmen beads brought here to barter in pursuit of the salt that ices the surrounding pans. Filigreed with baobab trees like fat, red ballet dancers bigger than buses, older than Christ. The place has been the holiest secret of the Kalahari Bushmen for longer than anyone knows, a place of power and ritual. Not far away is an ancient defence fortification that was only discovered a couple of years ago. Clamber to the top for an awe-inspiring view of the enormous Sowa pan, and a picnic lunch amongst the boulders and baobabs of Kubu Island. This is an adventure of old. Settle in and enjoy your night relaxing and sleeping under the stars.

Set off once more across the Pans on the quad bikes, ending your desert adventure with a last night of comfort back at San Camp.