In the late 17th and early 18th centuries, the Imperial city of Meknes must have been a dazzling, showstopping affair. Founded by the Almoravid dynasty in the 11th century, in 1672 the city was chosen by Moulay Ismail, one of Morocco’s great kings, as his new capital. He set about building an enormous palace complex surrounded by thick walls, in the hope of creating Morocco’s answer to Versailles. In 1755, the city was damaged by the Lisbon earthquake and Moulay Ismail’s grandson, Mohammed III, decided to move the capital to Marrakech. Today the city is home to more than half…

Towering above the Atlantic Ocean on the Casablanca shore lies Hassan II Mosque, one of the biggest and most beautiful mosques in Africa, and the first stop on my tour of Morocco. The enormous mosque was commissioned by King Hassan II, and built between 1986 and 1993 to a design by the French architect Michel Pinseau. I started my visit in the mosque’s colossal courtyard, which can hold up to 80,000 people. I’d arrived at the mosque first thing in the morning, so I spent some time looking around the courtyard while I waited for it to open, admiring the…

As with my other posts from elsewhere in Botswana, I had a handful of photos that I couldn’t fit into my post about the Moremi Game Reserve’s Xakanaxa region. So for my final post from Botswana, I’ve pulled together a selection of some of my other favourite photos from the area. An elephant A giraffe A marabou stork Herd of buffalo A red-billed hornbill A waterbuck An eagle A lion A hooded vulture

Our final destination in Botswana was the Xakanaxa region in Moremi Game Reserve, where we spent two nights wild camping. On our first full day in the area, we were up once again at 6am and out of the camp by 6.50am for an early morning game drive. It wasn’t long before we spotted our first signs of wildlife – two lion brothers in the grass. We watched on in awe as the pair came together, played briefly, then went their separate ways. Not long afterwards, we spotted an enormous flock of birds in a pool of water in the…

Our time in the Moremi Game Reserve couldn’t have been more different to our experience in Savuti. Whereas Savuti was dry, dusty and quiet on the wildlife front, Moremi Game Reserve was lush, wet and teeming with birds and animals. We spent two nights camping near the Khwai River, before moving onto Xakanaxa in another part of the reserve. On our first full day in Moremi, we were up at 6am and out for our first game drive by 7am. It didn’t take long before we spotted our first signs of wildlife – four giant hornbills by the side of…

When we were looking for somewhere to have dinner in Victoria Falls Town, one name came up time and again – the Dusty Road Township Experience. Described as a Zimbabwean cultural experience, the restaurant was opened in 2019 by Sarah Lilford, a fourth generation Zimbabwean, and offers diners a set tasting menu of traditional Zimbabwean dishes for US$35. Lunch is also available for US$24 a head. Our dinner started with shots of three welcome drinks – a tamarind, munyii berry and rosella iced tea (below); utshwala, a type of local beer; and maheu, a maize-based energy drink. The drinks proved…

Nothing can quite prepare you for the awe-inducing sight that is southern Africa’s mighty Victoria Falls. The waterfall, which is known as Mosi-oa-Tynua (‘the smoke that thunders’) in the local Sotho language, is a roaring, powerful spectacle and one of the great natural wonders of the world. It’s formed by the 1.7m-wide Zambezi River (below) as it cascades over a 300ft gorge, making it the largest waterfall in the world. It’s estimated that at the height of the rainy season, between February and May, some 500 million cubic metres of water tumble over the gorge every minute. Victoria Falls is…

If you want to see elephants in the wild, look no further than Chobe National Park. The 11,700 sq km park in north-western Botswana is home to some 35,000 elephants, the highest concentration of the pachyderms in the world. The sprawling park was opened in 1968, making it Botswana’s first national park, and it has a diverse range of habitats. The area around the Chobe River is home to the park’s biggest concentration of animals. There, alongside the aforementioned elephants, you’ll find giraffes, vervet monkeys, lions, crocodiles, impala, kudu, zebra and more. The park is also home to more than…

One of the most archaeologically significant and sacred sites in southern Africa, the captivating Tsodilo Hills are adorned by more than 4,500 rock paintings, painted by the San and Bantu peoples over thousands of years. Lying on the western edge of the Kalahari Desert, you can’t miss the hills, a series of four monumental rocks that dominate the otherwise flat, barren landscape. A UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2001, archaeologists estimate that Tsodilo has been occupied by humans for some 100,000 years and it’s long been revered by the people who live here. The San people believe it was the…