Botswana Special, a 17 days safari full of adventure including all the highlights and Game Parks of Botswana! Focus dry season & game viewing. Khama Rhino Sactuary, Makgadikgadi & Kubu Island, Moremi and Chobe National Park Linyanti.
Mapungubwe National Park - South Africa
A new South African National Park. The public recieved its first inkling of Mapungubwe’s ancient secrets in 1934, after the University of Pretoria announced the findings of father and son, Ernst and Jerry van Graan, and a group of intrigued friends.Guided reluctantly by the son of a local tribesperson, they had scaled the top of a small, sheer-walled mountain and discovered tangible evidence of a 1000-year-old royal realm, replete with burial treasures of gold, copper and glass beads.
Decades passed thereafter as archaeological excavations got underway; it was a process marked by hindrances and breaks in continuity, the main obstacle being World War II. A major boost to the Mapungubwe cultural landscape, as it was called at the time, was when UNESCO considered it sufficiently significant to receive World Heritagestatus in 2003. A year later, a brand-new national park was formed!
The park has an impressive location abutting the shining sinuous loops of the Limpopo, while 1km from Mapungubwe Hill is a viewsite giving onto an expansive vista of the meeting of the Limpopo and Shashe rivers.
Mapungubwe fringes the borders of three countries: Botswana, Zimbabwe and South Africa. Future plans see it merging with Zimbabwe’s Tuli Safari Area and Botswana’s Tuli Block to become the Limpopo Transfrontier Conservation Area.
The parks most distinctive feature is Mapungubwe Hill, a free-standing, sharp-edged, oblong bastion of sandstone and rock cliffs which protects the remnants of a king’s settlement. An elongation of 300m, it rises 30m above a dramatic bouldered lanscape, rocky koppies punctuating the bushveld of butterfly-leaved mopanes, wiry acacias and fat grey baobabs.
Tongasabi Safaris visiting Mapungubwe:
Rhino & Kalahari Safari - 11 days adventure camping
The Rhino & Kalahari Safari, the first section of our popular Botswana Adventure trail including the Mapungubwe National Park, the Khama Rhino Sanctuary, Makgadikgadi & Kubu Island and the Central Kalahari!
Botswana Adventure Trail Safari - 20 days
The Botswana Adventure Trail Safari, a specialist tour full of adventure including all the highlights and Game Parks of Botswana! Khama Rhino Sactuary, Makgadikgadi & Kubu Island, the Central Kalahari, Moremi and Chobe National Park.
