BAINES' BAOBABS
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These majestic baobabs on a small island opening onto the surrounding countryside owe their name to a famous Victorian artist.
These majestic baobabs are the major attraction of the northern section of the park. Located on a small island opening onto the surrounding countryside, these seven ancestral specimens owe their name to a famous Victorian artist.
Thomas Baines had come as early as 1858 to explore southern Africa with a convoy of David Livingstone. From 1861, he ventured alone with his friend James Chapman in the lands of present-day Botswana. Their journeys are narrated in their respective logbooks, but also in various artistic works because Baines is a painter and Chapman a photographer. They travel accompanied by local guides, whom they find mostly among the San tribes. Their journey is trying in more than one way: when they do not suffer from thirst, hunger, exhaustion or disease, it is the guides who desert several times, taking all the provisions. Having reached the level of the dried up bed of the ancient lake Makgadikgadi, Baines is amazed by the small island covered with baobabs. Seduced by both the majestic and ghostly appearance of the large trees, he immortalized them on his palette. Comparing his paintings with the trees today, one can conclude that the trees have remained, except for one or two branches, unchanged for over one hundred and sixty years.
With their gnarled and voluptuous forms, these branches offer a thousand perspectives to the photographer. The site is dry most of the year, except in the rainy season when it is covered with sheets of water, offering beautiful reflections to the baobabs.
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