„Makgadikgadi Pans, Botswana (Nigel Pavitt)“

A gnarled baobab tree grows among rocks at Kubu Island on the edge of the Sowa Pan. This pan is the eastern of two huge salt pans comprising the immense Makgadikgadi region of the Northern Kalahari _ one of the largest expanses of salt pans in the world. The 'island' is crowned with a magnificent collection of baobabs with brick-red trunks that turn crimson in the setting sun. Many of the trees are thought to be several thousand years old. One kilometre long and ten metres high, Kubu Island is an isolated granite outcrop with beaches of rounded pebbles, providing evidence of the existence there of a prehistoric lake. The place was inhabited in ancient times; the oldest pottery found on the island is at least 800 years old.