Travel Guide Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park

This national park was established in 1931 and covers 37,991 km2 between South Africa, Botswana and Namibia. In 1999, it became the first transboundary park in Africa when a bilateral agreement was signed between Pretoria and Gaborone to merge two former parks located on either side of the border. The animals roam freely since there is no fence marking the border. Its star animal is the oryx, a strange gazelle with straight horns that is common in the deserts of the two neighboring countries to the north. The park also has meerkats and many cats: 450 lions, 150 leopards, 200 cheetahs, 600 brown hyenas and 375 spotted hyenas. According to scientists, Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park is one of the most unspoiled areas in the world. The dunes in the south, reddened by the oxidation of the sand in contact with the air, are on average 10 m high. Not as pretty as the Namib desert and a bit monotonous, but more than 50 wells, drilled in the 20th century for human needs, attract animals today. During the great droughts, however, they are empty, so the only sources of water are tsamma melons and wild cucumbers. Kgalagadi means "the land of thirst".