It wasn’t a good omen. But no matter how many times I frantically pressed the buttons, the result was the same: my antiquated GPS had decided in its infinite wisdom to erase all my waypoints.

Normally I would just shrug my shoulders and continue my trip. However, since the only information contained on the GPS were my inputted waypoints, I was now left travelling blind on my first attempt to visit Kubu Island on the Sowa Pan, then across the Makgadikgadi Pans towards the relative civilisation of Maun.

That was a problem, because I was travelling across one of the world’s largest salt pans − at 16 000 km2 the Makgadikgadi Pans are as big as Switzerland. The kilometre-long Kubu Island is on Sowa Pan, one of the Makgadikgadi’s largest pans.
What’s worse, the pans have almost no landmarks.

As navigation is difficult due to the lack of plants and man-made structures, more than a few travellers have lost their way and unknowingly wandered in circles before perishing in the dust.

To complicate matters even further, like a giant, sticky spider web entrapping a fly, the damp clay sucks in any vehicle foolish enough to stray across its path during the wet season. Even in the dry season, the pans can remain treacherous underneath a deceptively thin, dry crust.

A few days earlier in Maun, I had been prematurely congratulating myself on an unprecedented level of preparation and foresight that involved inputting all the waypoints I might need to guide myself safely across the pans. All that effort, it now seemed, had been in vain. A vague phrase about “Best-laid plans …” involuntarily sprang to mind.

I stopped to assess the situation. Since I was coming from Francistown, I had decided to approach Kubu from the south, turning off the Fancistown-Orapa road, rather than the more conventional (and signposted) route north of Kubu from the Maun-Nata road.
I had driven through a village or two before reaching a crossroads when my GPS inexplicably suffered its bout of amnesia. Scrabbling around in the car for my InfoMap Botswana, I was ecstatic to see that Kubu’s GPS co-ordinates were listed. I quickly re-input them, deducing that I must be in Mmatshumo village, around 20 km from the main road.

A madala (a local old man) came walking down the track and I quickly approached him for directions. Despite the language barrier, I returned to my trusty Land Cruiser with renewed confidence and gently reminded myself that people did succeed in travelling to new places before the GPS was invented. With time on my side (I had only been on the road for 3 hours or so), I began to relax and take in my surroundings as I ventured further north.

There was not a single village between myself and Kubu Island, so I was surprised not to be passing through large tracts of grey pan already. Instead, the vegetation was predominantly scrubland, with patches of spiky, yellow grass and the occasional cluster of trees.

Once in a while, an opening would give me a glimpse of the infinite vista that was to come but then tantalizingly, vegetation or the natural topography would obscure my view.

Passing through the veterinary fence some 25 km later confirmed I was on the right track. Sure enough, soon a line of trees slowly appeared in front of me. The reflected heat haze bounced off the white pan, creating the illusion that they were suspended in mid-air.

As I approached, a larger form began to take shape, growing from a small, blurry mass into a discernible collection of trees and rocks, dwarfing the featureless landscape surrounding it – Kubu Island.