There’s nothing especially uncommon for those used to luxury about a 5-megastar pool villa, besides when the stated pool has a warthog consuming from it. My villa fronts instantly onto the wild South African bush. We’re advised now not to step outdoors after dark, not even for a 2d, if we get eaten. But this warthog is a friendly type. She’s nonplussed that I’m lounging in the cool water earlier than she scampers off on the lookout for lunch.
Sabi Sabi Earth Lodge is situated in the middle of a private game reserve in Sabi Sands, flanked by Kruger National Park. These 400 rectangular miles of land and the hundreds of unfenced hectares beyond are domestic to lions, leopards, cheetahs, hippos, and rhinos, aka The Big Five. Sculpted into a slope overlooking a herbal watering hole, accessed through a hidden hall, and overlooking uninterrupted bushveld, the Earth Lodge looks like a Brutalist Bond lair and has been defined as the most environmentally sensitive motel in Africa.
It’s served by using the tiny Skukuza airport, an hour’s Land Cruiser trip away, and every other hour’s flight from Johannesburg. Like maximum visitors jetting in from Europe, I took 24 hours to acclimatize in Jo’Burg. It turned into a week-long journey of contrasts, beginning with the land safari before swapping the bush for the coast on South Africa’s Western Cape to see the ‘Serengeti of the Sea’ and its huge marine 5; whale, dolphin, penguin, seal, and shark.
I’m given the Mandela Suite at Jo’Burg’s boutique and colonial Fairlawn Hotel, so named because Madiba was a frequent visitor. The nonviolent compound is placed in a wealthy residential enclave. A plate of springbok carpaccio with wasabi mayonnaise and treatment in the motel’s beautiful Balinese spa facilitates brightening up the senses after the 11-hour flight from Heathrow.
The following morning, I caught the two-times-daily South African Airways flight east to Skukuza and, within two minutes of tossing my suitcase into the back of a 4×four, I’ve already noticed a tower of giraffes. On the Earth Lodge approach, forewarned via the musky scent of a Turner Prize entry, I sight elephants snacking hungrily on Marula bushes. A giant-eared ‘bull’ elephant had stood majestically upon the hotel’s roof in advance that morning, as other guests’ envy-inducing photos prove. Animals can stride out to the brink of the soil-colored concrete shape, given the structure’s topographic design. It could give you a bit of a start over breakfast.
With just thirteen suites, the Earth Lodge is extremely exceptional yet unmanicured, and everybody’s on first-name terms. Typically, guests experience two safaris a day, every around three hours; one at the crack of dawn and the alternative in the late afternoon and stretching into dusk, when the beasts give up solar lounging and pass on the hunt. During our first afternoon, we started ticking names off our Big Five list. The first is a cheetah posing lazily in the amber mild. She seems so cute, you need to move and provide her a stroke; however, as I keep reminding myself, that could be catastrophically stupid.
We’re warned to live sitting down inside the open-top Land Cruiser and maintain all limbs within the automobile at all times. The predators see shapes in preference to specifics, and if that form changes, the claws will emerge. It’s the teeth of a hippopotamus that we discover later, yawning away in his waterhole, which certainly strikes the fear of God into me, if most effective for his lack of dental hygiene.
After a morning safari, you’ll need a hearty breakfast, and I cross for the Rancher’s Benedict, pairing a hollandaise-drenched muffin with cured venison and chakalaka, a spicy vegetable that appreciates. For lunch, I suggest the ostrich wrap. We stop for an aperitif during the evening safari, our ranger assembling an entire bar on the jeep’s bonnet. Amarula is the go-to tipple, a South African cream liquor. And just like the denizens of Sabi Sabi, we have dinner parties within the night, both within the properly-chosen 6,000 bottle-strong wine cellar or the outdoor ‘boma,’ around a fire pit. Kudu is a revelation, a lovable deer-like animal not unusual on this sports reserve. While grilled and served with a celebrity anise jus, it tastes just like the best fillet mignon.
At 6 am, binoculars prepared, we rub the sleep from our eyes and head back out into the wasteland with our tracker. Sabi Sabi is broadly speaking, silvery timber-like bush willows and inexperienced, gray, and ochre shrubs. It’s not as visually beautiful as, say, Kenya or Botswana. However, the plentiful natural world extra than makes up for it. We see several families of rhinos, the toddlers searching as they’ve shrunk in the wash. We see dazzles of zebra, and herds of buffalo, after which a leopard strolls about four inches at the back of our jeep. It’s a paradise for twitchers, too, with yellow-billed hornbills, with beaks like bananas, a private favorite. All that’s missing from my ticklist is a lion.
