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Sharpshooter on safari : At Xudum Okavango Delta Lodge, nine split-level safari suites offer large baths and outdoor showers. Each suit has a private plunge pool and a rooftop look-out with magnificent views. -
Sharpshooter on safari : Phinda Private Game Reserve's The Homestead is a safari villla of four suites built with thatch, gum poles and stone tiles. Guests have the use of a private ranger, tracker, butler and chef, as well as an open 4x4 vehicle. -
Sharpshooter on safari : Xaranna Okavango Delta Camp offers an irresistible combination of both luxurious facilities and intimate wildlife experiences. -
Sharpshooter on safari : Guests experience a feast of the senses at the Ngorongoro Crater Lodge at the eastern edge of the Serengeti. -
Sharpshooter on safari : The lush waterways of Botswana's Okavango Delta are best explored by mokoro. Xudum Okavango Delta Lodage and Xarranna Okavango Delta Camp are both in the southeast of the Moremi Wildlife Reserve. -
Sharpshooter on safari : At Marataba Lodge, 15 luxury tented suites have been carefully incorporated into the surrounding bushveld. -
Sharpshooter on safari : The award-winning Ngorongoro Crater Lodge designed by husband-and-wife team Silvio Rech and Lesley Carstens.
COMPILED BY: Dook & Annemarie Meintjes | WORDS: Dook
Over the past 11 years, Dook has had the tough job of photographing new game lodges for VISI. From the Waterberg to Ngorongoro, he has witnessed first-hand the growth of Southern Africa’s lodges.
I think we have women to thank for the significant rise of the designed lodge over the past decade. Let’s face it, just like me, most men love the idea of a safari as being the simpler the better. With only a thin layer of tent canvas separating us from prowling hyenas and a small spade as a mobile bathroom, we take primeval pride in the build-up of dirt on our bodies, enjoying the dust clouds that rise as we beat our chests.
On the other hand, it’s safe to say that most women, my wife included, aren’t happy on holiday without the Triple H: Hut, Hot tub and Hairdryer. Not that us men are complaining, you understand.
I’ve photographed many lodges for VISI and realise that those I like the most are those designed by architects who skillfully combine elements that appeal to both masculine and feminine tastes.
Originally African lodge design
Take the work of Silvio Rech and his partner Lesley Carstens, who began the trend of “originally African” lodge design with the village-like Makalali Private Game Lodge in Limpopo. The adobe walls, low, shaggy thatch and undulating walls made the vast bedrooms dark, moody and sexy. It’s a place where men feel like tribal kings and women like queens (Who wouldn’t with access to a handmade submerged bath large enough to accommodate three extra chiefs?).
For me, however, Ngorongoro Crater Lodge in Tanzania is the pair’s ultimate creation. Its unique look, inspired by the mud-and-stick homesteads of the Masai, fits perfectly into the unrivalled location on the rim of an ancient volcano. The rambling rooms are straight from the pages of an African fantasy book.
Separate mud huts on wooden stilts feature banana-bark roofs and heavy Zanzibari carved hardwood paneling against the interior walls, while the lounges have understated but grand cathedral-like domed roofs. Chris Browne’s interiors enhance the dream, with deep burgundy silks, rich velvets and red roses creating the ambience of a harem from the slave-trade era.
Great Zimbabwe ruins echoed
While Silvio is known for beginning his designs loosely on napkins and paper, later finalising them on site using a stick to outline each building on the ground, and even living on the spot to make sure the vision in his head evolves, architect Nicholas Plewman always draws up his ideas precisely beforehand.
At the entrance to Marataba in the Waterberg, Nick built towering stone walls reminiscent of the Great Zimbabwe ruins. Touches of granite appear again in the main lodge and rooms, called Tented Suites (the name alone appeals to men and women alike).
Each of these luxurious spaces is like a Bedouin pavilion resting on a wooden platform. Two thirds of the circular walls are solid, the other third canvas so that woman can feel safe and man can eagerly listen out for dangerous animals sniffing at the zip. In his Okavango projects, Nicholas again used canvas for the Xaranna Tented Safari and wood with fly screens for it sister camp, the Xudum Delta Lodge.
Another of Nicholas’s designs, The Homestead at Phinda Private Game Reserve in KwaZulu-Natal, may look like any thatched farmhouse from a distance but up close it’s an expansive four-bedroom residence of straight lines. The use of gabions for interior and exterior walls, as well as the semi-circular boma, creates a rough masculine texture. Chris Browne was also hard at work here, adding a unique African contemporary stamp on the lodge by incorporating top-quality South African furnishings and fabrics.
After experiencing all this, the only problem is that women now want to add an S to the hallowed Triple H, and spas have become one of their requirements too. But I’m not so convinced that men will pay to have mud plastered on them in the name of luxury when we could get it for free if we went camping… on our own.
Silvio Rech & Lesley Carstens: 011 486 1525, adventarch@mweb.co.za
Chris Browne: 083 456 8994
Nicholas Plewman: nick@plewmanarchitects.co.za
