Page 21 - Traveling 71 eng

One of the vehicles used by Nambiti Plains Safari for game drives
I came in search of the Africa of sto-
ries, documentaries, and that co-
llective imagination that taught us to
dream of acacias silhouetted against
orange skies and lions lying in wait
among the tall grass. And I found it,
yes, but in a different way. I found
it closer, warmer, quieter, and more
real. I found it in Nambiti. It is located
in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa—a
reserve of 22,000 acres, about 9,000
hectares, home to Africa’s “Big Five”
(lion, leopard, elephant, rhinoceros,
and buffalo) and more than 40 other
animal species, including cheetahs,
giraffes, hippos, hyenas, impalas,
and zebras.
A reserve that whispers
A few hours from Durban and a litt-
le further from Johannesburg, the
private reserve of Nambiti unfolds:
more than 9,000 hectares that have
reclaimed their wild calling after de-
cades of agricultural and livestock
use. Here, you won’t find queues of
four-wheel drives or printed maps
handed out by the dozen. What you
find is rugged terrain, open savan-
nah, rolling hills, riverside forests,
and, above all, life. Nambiti is still
a discreet jewel—a bespoke safari
where luxury is measured by the
quality of silence, the closeness of
wildlife, and the absence of artifice.
Staying at Nambiti Plains Lodge is,
quite literally, entering another di-
mension. The rooms, open to the
landscape, erase the boundary be-
tween indoors and out. You shower
with sunrise views, sleep to the dis-
tant symphony of animals, and have
breakfast watching impalas graze
beneath the restaurant. But beyond
the lodge’s elegant and sustainable
design, what truly sets this place
apart is respect. Respect for the en-
vironment. For the animals. For the
guest. For silence, light, and the wild
beauty that wraps everything. The
cabins: elegance in the vastness.
TRAVEL
In Nambiti,
luxury is not
about artifice,
but about untou-
ched silence,
true closeness to
nature, and Afri-
ca’s wild beau-
ty—closer and
more real than I
ever imagined
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