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San Camp
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Makgadikgadi Pans
San Camp 
San Camp offers the Earth, stripped naked. And, such restraint holds its own charms.
Six pale khaki canvas tents twinned with a dramatic location, combine to create an oasis of civilisation in what can be the harshest of stark environments. The result: San Camp is one of the most romantic camps in Africa!
And this place could not be more different from everywhere. San camp is the Stewart Granger Memorial Collection of 1940s safari tents, with no running water nor electricity but with comfortable beds, cotton sheets, paraffin lamps, wonderful food and personal service. Bathrooms are en-suite with bucket showers and flushing loos.
Jack's Camp and San Camp are unique in that they are the only permanent camps to offer a chance to explore and understand the Kalahari. Our concession adjoins the Makgadikgadi National Park with its endless vistas of rolling golden grasslands. Desert palms line the horizon.
The camp is closed 01 October to 28 February as the rainy season makes access difficult.
Accommodation at San Camp:
Room Details
Green canvas tents
Honeymoon tents each have four-poster double beds
Rustic but comfortable safari furnishings
Copper water basins
Paraffin lamps
En suite flush toilets and bucket showers
Camp Description
Mess tent with small museum and games chest, maps and bar
Al fresco dinning, weather permitting
Inclusions / Exclusions
Rates Include:
Fully inclusive tariff includes accommodation, all meals, all activities, park fees and all drinks (except premium imports)
Rates Exclude:
Imported drinks and tips/gratuities
Extra information
Safaris, Game drives and other activities
Venturing far into the centre of the Makgadikgadi, on 4wd quad bikes, you are able to explore remote archaeological sites, periodically discovering never-before-documented fossil beds of extinct giant zebra and hippo. The fact that you can travel across the pans at great speed and still arrive nowhere only underlines the pan's immensity. There is nothing out here. Absolutely nothing. No outcrops, no features, no grass, no trees, no sound but the crunch of your boots in the crust.
The Kalahari desert is its own universe. It is the only place where guests are virtually guaranteed to see the rare and elusive brown hyaena and be able to walk through the Kalahari with a gang of habituated, but wild meerkats (suricates)!
The guides at San and its satellite, Jack's Camp, are an erudite breed. Often graduate students who combine research with guiding, they team up with a small group of Zu/'hoasi Bushmen to guideguests on morning walks and game drives. Offering a window into the past, the Bushmen teach us how they have survived in this harshest of environments, using ancient knowledge of plants, animal behaviour and survival skills.
Game Viewing
Year round: unique desert species - Suricate (meerkats), Brown hyaena, aardvark, aardwolf, gemsbuck, springbuck, etc.
Wet season: Flamingo, Stork, Wattled Crane, Waterfowl, annual Wildebeest and Zebra migration.
Activities Available
Wet Season:
- Game drives in open 4x4 Landcruisers - the camp has 3 custom designed vehicles with 2 rows of seats behind the front row thus seating max. 5 guests when allowing each guest an outside seat
- A morning spent with the suricate (meerkat)
- Bird walks to observe migratory waterfowl breeding / feeding sites.
- Very limited usage of 4WD quad bikes and vehicles on the pans - weather permitting and if the pans are dry
- Night drives to view migration and unique desert wildlife.
- Game walk with Bushman trackers.
- Visit to Chapman's Baobab (the campsite of Livingstone, Selous and Baines)
- Visit remote area dwellings / cattle posts to gain insight into local tribal tradition and culture.
- Explore undocumented archaeological sites to search for stone tools and fossils of extinct mega fauna left in the area by early settlements, weather permitting.
Dry Season:
- Extensive usage of 4WD quad bikes
- Explore undocumented archaeological sites to search for stone tools and fossils of extinct mega fauna left in the area by early settlements, weather permitting
- Night drives to view unique desert wildlife
- Game walk with Bushman trackers
- Visit to Chapman's Baobab (the campsite of Livingstone, Selous and Baines
- A morning spent with the suricate (meerkat)
Children
Children over the age of 4 years welcome
Laundry
Laundry is done on a daily basis and inclusive in the nightly tariff with the exception of 'smalls' i.e. underwear, which are not washed due to local customs. There is washing powder in the tents.
Climate
Botswana's climate is semi-arid. Though it is hot and dry for much of the year, there is a rainy season, which runs through the summer months. Rainfall tends to be erratic, unpredictable and highly regional. Often a heavy downpour may occur in one area while 10 or 15 kilometres away there is no rain at all. Showers are often followed by strong sunshine so that a good deal of the rainfall does not penetrate the ground but is lost to evaporation and transpiration.
Summer (Rainy season)November - March
It usually brings very high temperatures. Cloud coverage and rain can cool things down considerably, although only usually for a short period of time.
Winter (Dry season)May - August
Virtually no rainfall occurs. Days are invariably sunny and cool to warm; however, evening and night temperatures can drop below freezing point in some areas, especially in the southwest.
The in-between periods - April/early May and September/October - still tend to be dry, but the days are cooler than in summer and the nights are warmer than in winter.
What to take
- Light clothing and swimming costumes in summer
- Sun hat, sunglasses and sun block
- Warm clothing and jackets in winter and summer night drives
- Walking shoes
- Cameras and binoculars
