Tuli Block

The far eastern corner of Botswana, where the Limpopo and Shashe rivers converge at the meeting point of three countries (Botswana, Zimbabwe, South Africa), is nothing like the rest of Botswana. Instead of flat Kalahari sand and open Delta channels, the Tuli Block presents dramatic sandstone cliffs, deep rocky gorges, basaltic koppies, massive ancient baobab trees, and a network of seasonal riverbeds running through compressed and visually concentrated terrain. The landscape rewards close-range photography; the geological drama is constant.

The Tuli Block itself is a 350-kilometre ribbon of privately owned freehold land along the Limpopo River, a historical anomaly created in the 1890s when the British Colonial administration intended to use it as the route for Cecil Rhodes's Cape-to-Cairo railway. The railway never came (it went around through Zimbabwe instead), but the land tenure remained private rather than reverting to the Crown or to traditional community ownership. The result, a century later, is a unique conservation landscape: a contiguous stretch of private game reserves with relatively low tourist density and an active rewilding history that has restored populations of elephant, leopard, lion, and the full mammal community.

Mashatu Game Reserve is the dominant conservation force, a 30,000-hectare private reserve famous for its large elephant herds (moving through terrain so sculpted that the animals' scale is constantly recalibrated by the rock formations around them), a significant resident leopard population, and an approach to safari activities that goes substantively beyond the standard vehicle game drive. Mashatu has pioneered photographic-hide safari, horseback safari, and mountain-bike safari formats that exist almost nowhere else in southern Africa. The Tuli is the alternative for travellers who have done the standard Botswana safari circuit (Delta + Chobe + Kalahari) and want to see something materially different. It is also logistically distinct: accessed primarily by road from South Africa rather than by light aircraft from Maun, with the consequence that it sees substantially fewer international visitors than the Delta or Chobe properties. The lower volume is part of the appeal.