ETOSHA NATIONAL PARK

The Etosha National Park is one of Namibia’s most iconic and best known locations, behind the Skeleton Coast. The vast salt pans, some 75 miles by 55 miles, are located at the heart of the park and were formerly an ancient lake that dried up as the result of a geological shift that dramatically changed the course of the Kunene River. Today the Etosha pan is dry for large parts of the year; the stark, parched white surface giving Etosha its Herero name – ‘Great White Place’. The Etosha does receive a limited amount of annual rainfall and is fed by a few small rivers, leading to its salty waters creating a rich growth of algae that attracts a million or more flamingos. The edges of the pan give way to a surprising variety of vegetation types: from woodland and broad swathes of mopane, to open acacia-strewn plains and grasslands.