The Tuli Block

This ruggedly beautiful corner of northeastern Botswana is very easily accessible from South Africa and well worth a visit. Huge, striking red-rock formations, unlike anywhere else in Botswana, mingle with acacia woodlands, riverine bush, hills, wooded valleys, and open grassy plains. Be sure to visit the Motloutse ruins where ancient baobabs stand sentinel over Stone-Age ruins that have existed here for more than 30,000 years, as majestic black eagles soar overhead.

Still relatively unknown to foreign travelers, the Tuli Block is home to huge elephant herds, the eland—Africa's largest and highest-jumping antelope—zebras, wildebeests, leopards, and prolific bird life. Try to catch a glimpse of the elusive and diminutive klipspringer antelope perching on top of a rock zealously guarding his mountain home. Gareth Patterson, southern Africa's "Lion Man," lived here alone with three young lions over a period of years, successfully reintroducing them to the wild after having brought them down from Kenya after George "Born Free" Adamson was brutally murdered there by poachers.

Getting Here & Around

Mashatu is an easy five-hour drive from Johannesburg and Gaborone. You'll be met at Pont Drift, the South African/Botswana border post, where you leave your car under huge jackalberry trees at the South African police station before crossing the Limpopo River by 4x4 vehicle or cable car—depending on whether the river is flooded.

If you'd rather fly, South African Airlink (011/978-1111 www.flyairlink.co.za) flies daily from O.R. Tambo International Airport, Johannesburg, to Polokwane, where you can pick up a self-drive or chauffeur-driven car from Budget Rent a Car (011/398-0123) for the just-under-two-hour drive to Pont Drift, the South African/Botswana border post.

Mashatu Game Reserve

Mashatu offers a genuine wilderness experience on 90,000 acres that seem to stretch to infinity on all sides. There are wall-to-wall elephants—breeding herds often with tiny babies in tow—as well as aardvarks, aardwolves (a type of hyena), lots of leopards, wandering lions, and hundreds of birds. All the superb rangers are Batswana—most were born in the area and some have been here for more than 15 years. Their fund of local knowledge seems bottomless.