South African Sojourn

A journey to the African Bush is both a mesmerising and life-changing experience, writes Irene Martel Francisco

- Irene Martel Francisco

What makes a trip so memorable, so deeply seared into one’s consciousness that 10 weeks after returning home, you find your thoughts constantly drifting to those magical days and nights spent in the African Bush? I never wanted to go on a South African safari…It was so far out of my comfort zone! However, life has an uncanny way of putting you where you are meant to be, so I found myself giving in to my family’s wish, notwithstanding a two-and-a-half-year delay.

I reached out to A2A Safaris, the authority on luxe safari voyages, to help me plan a trip as painless as possible. After countless e-mails and meetings with them, going over plans, and being reassured, I was finally off to South Africa. My husband Randy, our daughter Isabel, and I were joined on the trip by close family friends Chuchu Madrigal and Mandy Eduque with their daughters Alex and Michaela.

We decided to stay at two Singita properties, arguably the best lodges for that glam safari experience, whose owners’ passion for the past two decades is to actively preserve the African wilderness. The Singita Boulders Lodge in the Sabi Sands reserve was warmly welcoming after almost a day of travelling. The large semi-open central thatched lounge area is stylishly decorated with African fabrics, offering up large sofas and wide-open vistas of the Sand River. Our glass fronted suite is ideally situated so that one can look out at the African plains and watch the game wander by in the distance from the fourposter bed, the sitting room or the sundeck with its own plunge pool. While we were settling in, a herd of at least 20 elephants made their way towards the river as if from cue, all moving at such a natural and leisurely pace.