Sabi Sand offers remarkable density and variety of African game

I wrote this entry after returning from Honeymoon, but the posting date coincides with when we were actually experiencing what's described here.

Safari, of course, is about the animals. Forget the luxurious lodge, the adventure in arriving, the dramatic landscapes. A safari's success is determined by the quality, quantity and variety of photos you carry home.

We were armed with unexceptional cameras; basic point-and shoots with a maximum 10x zoom, a Flip video and the still and video features on my iPad. And this, honestly, is all we needed. The Sabi Sand is so rich with wildlife, and the animals are all so used to game trucks settling beside them, that just a single drive will probably bring you within 20 yards of more African animals than you've seen in all of the zoos in your life, combined. Our photographic game bag, after deleting all the average stuff, is more than 600 files.

We saw "the Big 5" in the first hour of our first drive. Elephants loping along in family groups, from the grizzled old matriarch to adorable infants. Buffalo streaming to the water hole in a herd so big it stretched beyond the horizon. A rhino, placidly grazing in a grassy copse, not the least bit disturbed as a sleek leopard strolled by casually. (We, however, were stunned.). Best of all, a pride of lions, the male sitting majestic and aloof while several lionesses kept a close eye on a pack of gambolling cubs. We sat in between them, papa lounging elegantly just six feet to my right, three cubs chasing each other up and down a tree perhaps 20 feet to Piers' left.

I was so entranced I didn't even consider the fact that any of these gorgeous felines could take me down for dinner with a few swipes of their huge and lethal paws. The animals completely ignore the trucks, however. We were under strict instructions to keep hands inside and not stand up; evidently, as long as everyone stays in an even line, the animals just see the truck as another, single animal, too big to bother with.

In the lethal but beautiful stakes, it's hard to pick a favourite between the lions and the leopards, both of which we saw in multiples every day. The leopards have a lithe elegance that's hard to beat. One night, just before sunset, we watched a male in his prime stroll across a meadow towards our truck and circle it. We then followed him for about 20 minutes as he wandered through the brush and up the road. Even at a slow pace, his power was obvious. Muscles rippled beneath that exquisite skin, everything moved with elegance and a restrained power. It is surprising, actually, that lions are more associated with monarchy and power since, when you get close to those tawny beasts in the wild, it's hard to shake the feeling that they're just oversized house cats you want to scratch behind the ears and curl up with.

We only encountered the pride with the male and the cubs once. The rest of the trip we tracked a group of five lionesses. At rest, they were gorgeous and dozy. These animals have mastered the art of expending only the energy needed for the necessary jobs; otherwise, they lounge. I like their style. But the lounging is deceptive. This was a group of voracious hunters. One morning we encountered them finishing off the remains of the impala they'd taken down over night. The guide doubted they'd move again, as they'd finished off a buffalo the day before. And yet, by 8:30 we found them crouched beneath bushes next to our watering hole, watching as a herd of buffalo came to drink. Still, silent, rigid with concentration, they sat there for hours. After the large herd had drank their fill and left, a smaller bachelor herd arrived.

At 1:30, while we were sitting down to lunch just across the lake, they made their move. One lioness to taunt someone out of the herd. Others to circle around and behind. A dance of death. Because slowly, surely, by a step here and another there, they eventually coaxed one foolish buffalo out of the herd. And once he was separated, our guide told us, the game was over. There was still one hell of a fight ... one of my enduring images is one of those lionesses being head butted up into the air between the horns of the buffalo ... but eventually, the tawny huntresses got their claws and teeth into his neck and head and drew things to a close. It was the spectacle of our trip. It would be two or three days before the lions would have their fill and give up the carcass to the secondary predators like hyena and the vultures who were already gathering, by which point we had moved on.

There's far more than the Big 5 to see, however. Impala are abundant, roaming in small herds and quick to dash off. And why not? They are the McDonald's happy meals of the bush. We saw almost as many water buck, and a fair number of the more majestic kudu with their beautiful spiral horns. Herds of zebra were skittish, but even more attractive as they galloped away. The giraffe are fascinating as they graze their treetops and, when startled, lope off with such an odd gait due to their shape you have to wonder about the logic of Darwin's theories.

I find it a bit mysterious that buffalo are considered part of the Big 5 but hippo are excluded because, honestly, they're much more fun to watch. Fascinating in shape, adorable in youth and remarkably loud; the haunting bellows of the family in the water just outside our room woke us in the middle of the night. One of my favourite afternoon pastimes was to pour myself a G&T, settle on the deck and watch the hippos slow and stately interaction in the water below. Yet these giants can move at high speed when needed. We saw those voracious lionesses chase a hippo the afternoon after they'd taken down the buffalo and I couldn't believe how fast those stubby legs got the animal back to the lake. But not before she whirled around and faced off with the lions. Maybe this speed was what the Greeks had in mind when they first named them "water horses".

It's not just the big, showy zoo stars that grab your attention. The more drives you go on, and the more you get used to seeing the iconic creatures at your elbow, the more you turn your attention to smaller and more unusual things. Like the elusive honey badgers we tracked in circles around the scrub until they finally made a dash for their dens. Or the side striped jackals, who were far more attractive, and dog-like, than my jackal expectations, which had been entirely set by ancient Egyptian gods. There were monkeys in chattering social groups in big-canopied trees, crocodiles occasionally surfacing in our waterhole and warthogs who epitomised the concept of "so ugly it's kinda cute". Even the bugs were fascinating; a red dragonfly held my attention for ages as it hopped amongst lotus flowers in the lodge's water garden.

But when it comes to the small and unexpected, the guides told us that multiple Safari visitors often end up most intrigued by the birds. And this is no surprise, as the variety, colour and sound of these bush dwellers makes me understand the allure of bird watching. The fish eagles at our watering hole were just as majestic as their bald American cousins, and entertained us regularly by fishing their dinner out of the water as we watched. Burchell's starlings look like your bog standard blackbird until they wander into direct sunlight, where they turn a metallic blue. Vultures are quite a bit more majestic than their cartoon image, and come in many varieties. In fact, we saw one juvenile version ... evidently a highly unusual spotting for that part of Africa ... that looked far more like a hawk. Three Egyptian ducks put on an argumentative show, chasing each other in splashy circles, every time we came upon them at a small neighbouring waterhole. Flocks of guinea fowl often ran alongside our truck. But the most miraculous vision of all had to be the lilac breasted roller, which our guide told us has 14 distinct colours in its plumage. We watched it sitting on a branch for nearly 10 minutes, utterly fascinated. When an approaching truck frightened it away our disappointment was mixed with awe, as watching it in flight was like seeing a rainbow condensed and set in motion.

For most of the guests, this was a rare adventure. For a few ... usually those kitted out with the most impressive camera equipment ... safari was a regular holiday destination. And I can see why. The spectacle of the animal world, from the biggest elephant to the tiniest dragonfly, is a show that changes daily, and never ceases to amaze.

For luxury in the African bush, it's Chitwa Chitwa

I wrote this entry after returning from Honeymoon, but the posting date coincides with when we were actually experiencing what's described here.

Camping has never been for me.

Don't get me wrong, I love the great outdoors. Looking at it, taking pleasant strolls through it, watching David Attenborough talk about it ... but I have no need to forgo pleasures like hot water and good linen to get close to it. In recent years there's been quite a trend for "glamping" ... tents, but with all the accoutrements of a luxury hotel. It's a movement that started in the African bush, and there's plenty of opportunity out here for upscale roughing it. But that is not, thank heavens, what we got at Chitwa Chitwa, where the only rough item in the place is probably the exfoliating scrubs in the spa.

Chitwa Chitwa was once a family home, the centre of a vast private game reserve. As times changed and safari tourism took off, the Brink family followed the pattern of many in this area, expanding their lodge with guest accommodation and building a pattern of activities around game drives. The Sabi Sand region is filled with lodges like this, most fairly small and working together to expose their guests to the animals criss-crossing this enormous, fence-free land.

While I have no real comparison, only seeing the other lodges from the outside, I suspect the Sabi Sand experience doesn't get much better than Chitwa, whether we're talking luxury, quality of the staff or the proximity to animals.

The lodge is actually more of a village; a cluster of thatched buildings spread around one side of the biggest watering hole in the area. That fact alone provides a game-watching advantage. We watched families of hippos, herds of buffalo and elephant, and even lions, from the comfort of our own deck. Each of the nine suites is its own detached building. All are different in size and decor, yet share features like private decks and plunge pools, king-sized beds under cathedral ceilings wreathed in mosquito netting and high-concept modern bathrooms, with all of the walls facing the watering hole of glass to make the whole suite a viewing platform. Ours was particularly enormous, as it's actually two bedroom suites, each leading off a comfortable sitting room with overstuffed couches and piles of coffee table books, sharing a deck big enough to host a cocktail party for everyone else in the lodge, if you were in the mood.

The decor here, and throughout the lodge, is a quirky mix of traditional African and modern art. Our suite had black walls, abstract paintings, rich upholstery (including a faux fur bedspread), rococo gilt mirrors, an enormous silver candelabra next to a cocktail tray crowded with crystal, polished spirals of kudu horns and a towering carved tribal figure. A strange, dark mixture, but it worked. Probably because during the day, the glass walls drenched everything with light and spectacle, and at night the staff let down the mosquito netting, transforming the bed into a giant, rose-petal strewn white tent. Given the odd sleeping patterns necessitated by the drive schedule, we spent more time in this room than in any other on honeymoon. It deserved and rewarded our attention. And that's probably one of my top tips for safari; you'll spend the middle of every day in your room, so make sure it's nice.

Of course, if the room hadn't been quite so beguiling, we might have spent a bit more time in the public areas. All of these continued with the modern African rococo style, distinguished in many places by skulls and bones of former occupants of the reserve, gilded and transformed into chandeliers or striking objets d'art.

At the centre of things is the main game lodge. Its primary room is a combination sitting room, bar and dining room, one area flowing into another, all continuing the place's oversized proportions. We gathered every night here for cocktails and conversation. The guests ... affluent, well educated and from a variety of countries with a range of fascinating jobs ... were an interesting bunch, bringing almost as much entertainment to the evenings as we'd had on the game drives. The night we ate in the dining room there were more than 20 of us at the table. Another night we ate as couples at lantern lit tables on the wide decks, and our third night our individual tables were arranged in a 3/4 circle around a bonfire in a wooden walled, roofless enclosure called a boma, set up behind the main lodge.

The bar and living area opens up onto a thatched, open sided veranda as wide as the building behind it. Clusters of thickly-cushioned couches and armchairs sit here, separated by yet another bar; this one used for morning and afternoon coffee and tea. Around the corner, also under a thatched overhang, is a check-in desk backed by some oversized tribal masks. Off here, there's a luxuriously appointed library with the only television in the place (necessary for some people checking rugby world cup results) and a shared computer with internet access thanks to a slow but steady satellite link.

Between all of that and the watering hole, there's a field of decking, part including an infinity pool that overlooks the watering hole, the rest just wide-open area for strolling, lounging and watching the animals. Across that, continuing along the arc of the watering hole, is the dining pavilion. Here, with gravel crunching under your feet, thatch cooling you above and white gauze curtains blowing in the breeze, you settle in for breakfast and lunch, indulging in delicious food and copious wine as the watering hole puts on its own show. (Of that, more in the next entry.)

A path of wooden decking runs from here, away from the water and up a gentle hill. There are gardens and ponds here, taking partial shade from a high stone wall and a few trees. A thatched cottage off to one side is the spa. At the top of the little incline is another large, thatched pavilion, holding a gift shop filled with tribal arts and crafts, and Chitwa Chitwa clothing on one side, and the business office on the other. There's a towering breezeway dividing them in the centre, dominated by a chandelier of elephant bones and framed by sculptures of cheetahs on each side. This is the portal through which we depart for game drives, and where Dino welcomes us back each evening with the signature cocktail of the day.

As night falls, the hippos bellow, strange things splash in the night and we stick close to Andreis as he escorts us from lodge to suite. We are in the lap of magnificently African luxury, but in one respect, this is no different from camping. We are visitors here. The land belongs to the big things prowling the darkness.

Game lodge routine brings structure to some extra-ordinary days

And now, it's time for the excitement and adventure part of the trip.

It had already been a long day of air travel (four hours from Mauritius to Johannesburg, a two-hour layover in Joburg's sleepy local terminal, another 40-minute flight from Joburg) when we touched down at Kruger. The landing was an adventure in itself; don't look out the window if you're a nervous flyer. Nelspruit Airport sits on a flat plateau high above the town of Kruger. Beyond the end of the airstrip is what looks like some impressive cliffs down which an over-shooting plane could tumble. Our landing was smooth, however, despite the recent cool front and clouds heavy with rain. It wasn't the weather I'd been expecting.

The airport, however, left no doubt we were in the African bush. It looks like a big game lodge, thatched and cozy with just a single long atrium for arrivals, departures and a cafe. There was nobody to meet us on arrival so Piers went wandering to try to find our rep from Odie Air. Soon one of the locals offered to call her (Odie, it turns out, is a woman and a company) and we were told to sit tight, the plane was on its way. Not long after, our pilot James turned up, grabbed our luggage, took us back through security and onto the tarmac. His plane was a six-seat Cessna, and we were the only passengers.

If I'd been excited before, I was now at fever pitch. This was a real "Out of Africa" moment, leaving the airstrip in a tiny plane and flying so low as we headed into the bush. From this perspective you can see the web of game trails, criss-crossing the bush like a network of nerves, veins and arteries with the occasional human road intersecting them. The landscape, which looks a dull brown on first glance, is actually a wonder of subtlety, with a rich variety of pale greens, tans, golds, browns and blacks. Our route took us over Kruger National Park, mostly a vast, flat expanse, with drama added by the odd river (mostly dry beds at this, the end of the dry season) or towering plateau. Nearing our game lodge, James pointed to the dirt airstrip running up a gentle hill between the leafless trees. He couldn't speak over the noise of the propeller, but I remembered his grin back at Kruger when he'd said "this is as tough of a bush landing as you get!"

We were on our way in, got close to the ground, then pulled up and circled again. I realised James was buzzing the runway to clear it of warthog and giraffe. Animals pushed back, we came in again for a landing that was gentler than many a jumbo jet on smooth tarmac. Just a stone's throw from the plane's stopping point sat one of the game lodge's trucks, and next to it our tracker, Rodney. Tall and slim, kitted out in classic bush khaki, with skin the tone of black velvet, a musical accent and a grace of movement shared with the local wildlife. He bundled us in the truck and drove us a scant 300 yards to the lodge entry, where the manager pressed glasses of champagne into our hands and told us it was time to move fast. Afternoon game drive was leaving now. Grab warm clothes and your camera, tell us what you want for sundowners (cocktails as the sun sets) and scramble aboard.

And thus began the pattern of game drives that would mark our days at Chitwa Chitwa.

5am wakeup call. Throw on clothes. Pile on the layers, as it could be bitterly cold at dawn. But bring the sun protection, as it will be blazing by 8am. Gather on the veranda for coffee before climbing into our game vehicles at 5:30. You're assigned a vehicle when you arrive, with tracker Rodney perched on a seat bolted to the front left corner, and our driver and guide Andreis behind the wheel. Three tiers of seats rise behind the driver, 10 guests at the maximum ... but we never had more than eight. (I sense this is one of the advantages of Chitwa, as vehicles from other lodges looked more crowded.) About half way through the morning drive, our team would find a spot safe from animals, pull over and set up morning coffee, with some baked treat from the kitchen to hold us over until breakfast.

We'd return to the lodge and a hearty breakfast around 9. After which a walking safari is usually available, but not an option on our days due to lions in the area. (Of them, more later.) The hours until the afternoon game drive featured much needed naps, lounging in our luxurious suite, watching the hippos and other wildlife interact at the watering hole and indulging in multiple-course al fresco lunches with matching South African wines poured by Dino, our ever-present bartender who kept us well hydrated, from that first 5am coffee to the last scotch before bed.

At 3:30 pm tribal drums would summon us back to the main lodge for afternoon tea or coffee before the next game drive. Off we'd wander into the late afternoon, taking in abundant views of game until the sun set and Rodney and Andreis pulled over to set up camp for sundowners. After cocktails, we'd drive back to the lodge with the assistance of Rodney's high beam spotlight, which often picked out nocturnal animals. Without the sun, the nights were bracingly cold; we quickly realised the heavy wool blankets in the trucks weren't just decorative. Above, a night sky free of light pollution glimmered, the long smudge of the Milky Way clearly visible while the Southern Cross proclaimed we were most definitely in a strange place.

We'd arrive back at the lodge about 7, now needing to be escorted to and from our rooms. Nobody walked alone after dark, a precaution that ... even if I hadn't seen the sense in it immediately ... would have become logical on our first morning when I could see clear, large feline paw prints in the sand outside our door. After an hour to freshen up and enjoy a cocktail from the all-inclusive mini bar, the drums would sound again and Andreis would materialise out of the darkness to take us to dinner. Up at the main lodge we'd talk with the guides, trackers and other guests, making a comfortable and conversant party of about 25. By 10:30, most people were letting guides take them back to their rooms, ready to slip under the impressive canopies of mosquito netting and get a good night's sleep before it all started again.

And that, quite simply, is what we did for three glorious days. But each day varied, distinguished by the variety of animals, the meals back at the lodge and the arrival and departure of fellow guests. Three nights and six game drives was enough for us to settle into a routine, and perhaps to reach a level of satisfaction, though we certainly never got bored. Next, it's time to talk wildlife.