“If I have ever seen magic, it has been in Africa.”

– John Hemingway

6 a.m. – wake up call to get ready for first game drive of our safari in the Manyoni Game Reserve*. The powerful roaring of a male lion is in the air. We could hear him the whole night as if he was lying right next to our tent. We cannot wait to finally spot him. We knew, a magical safari is ahead of us.

The opposite of mass tourism.
While driving with only one other couple in the cheep into the rising sun we finally found the roaring male lion, lying next to the river bed. We were the only vehicle at the sight for about an hour, watching the lion marking his territory. In general, the Reserve allows only 2 vehicles per sight in order to minimize the impact on the environment and the stress on the animals. And it provided us with one of the most intimate and exclusively experience we ever had on a safari.

Talking about wildlife protection.
The Reserve is part of the WWF’s Black Rhino Range Expansion Project (BRREP) to increase the number of the critically endangered black rhino. Rhinos are dehorned every two years in order to protect them from poachers. Poaching remains the main threat to the survival of the rhino. Thanks to this project, the number of black and white rhinos in South Africa slowly increases.

Beauty lies in the details.
We were staying in the smallest, most luxurious and simultaneously most eco friendly lodge in the Reserve – Rhino Sands Safari Camp. After the morning safari game drive, we enjoyed our time together, sitting on the loungers next to our private pool of our tent watching a herd of Nyalas peacefully grazing five meters in front of us. The tented Safari lodge is fully incorporated into its environment. Each and every single tree, bush and branch was allowed to keep its destined place. Unseen for visitors, the lodge has its own solar panels providing enough energy to fully run the lodge on renewable energy.

*Manyoni Game Reserve is an exclusive paradise for nature lovers at the heart of the Zululand, covering a variety of landscapes: bush, open fields and gentle hills. The reserve is home to the big 5 (rhino, elephant, leopard, lion and buffalo) as well as the endangered species of wild dogs and cheetahs.