………aka Fawlty Towers.
You may wonder where does a spoilt Safari Tart go for her Christmas holidays? I needed a place to veg out, do absolutely nothing, get up late, read a lot and turn up for breakfast at 10.30am. I also wanted to feel like I belonged and be entertained a little. Sounds good doesn’t it? I found just the place - a real life Fawlty Towers complete with Basil and other crazy characters in the countryside near Cape Town.
I do like a generous size bath and the big oval bath in the lagoon-side safari suite at Mosiac Farm, could fit little ole me and my 6ft man. The only problem was that that neither I nor Man, could reach both the spout and the taps at the same time. We had to run the bath in tandem, him on the taps, me on the spout (not elegant). 
But once in, it was all worth it.
You don’t have to do yoga to go on a Southern Africa Yoga Safari, but it helps.
In a hidden location amongst giant sandstone rocks on the West Coast of South Africa near Eland’s Bay, Southern African Yoga Safaris makes use of a rocky retreat for a getaway with a difference. While doing your ‘Salute to the Sun’ or Tree Posture (seen here), you stare out and may meet the eyes of some of the antelopes or zebra that live in this nature reserve. Or if you are very yogic, you may be looking inwards and finding the peace within.
‘Number One Hotel in the World’
according to 2009 US Travel + Leisure World’s Best Awards reader’s survey.
Crikey, what an accolade! Read my review of Bushman’s Kloof Wilderness Reserve http://www.safaritart.com/?p=119 on this site and find out why it won this award. Who does the voting and how many people who voted have actually been there I wonder, but this exclusive 5-star wilderness retreat at the foothills of the Cederberg Mountains (about 270m north of Cape Town), is certainly one of my favourite places.
I have fond memories of when my friend fell into the ice cold mountain dam after trying to extricate himself from a canoe that he could not control. And mountain 
biking with zebra and antelopes grazing on the plain and sitting by a remote spot where the strangely shaped yellow and ochre rocks created a landscape of natural sculptures. And then there was a press visit when I was forced to eat a ten-course taster menu - each nibble was more delicious than the last and I ended up with a stomach twice the size of my body but still wanted more.
This day ended with a massage from hands that knew how to unlock the tension.
Oh for that day to be right now!
And whaddyaknow, Bushman’s Kloof also took pole position as the Number 1 Lodge/Resort in Africa and the Middle East and their sister property, The Twelve Apostles Hotel and Spa, in CapeTown, was voted the Best City Hotel in Africa & Middle East, as well as Best Hotel Spa in Africa & the Middle East.
Enough now! If you want to know more you’d better look on www.travelandleisure.com/worldsbest
Or see www.bushmanskloof.co.za, email: safaritart@wydahtours.com
Written by Safari Tartlet, Renate de Villiers.
Bossy (the Nokia Navigator GPS) was talking nicely to us giving us directions, because Carrie had forgotten the way to African Game Lodge in the Western Cape Mountains near Montagu. But Bossy was a little out of sorts because we were going into the middle of the mountains and she was not familiar with this off-the-beaten-path track to nowhere. I am Renate de Villiers, Carrie’s intern from Pretoria University, spending a week with Carrie to learn how to become a travel writer. I didn’t realize I would start my career being a Safari Tartlet! But up until now, I’ve enjoyed it so much that I don’t feel like leaving very soon.
The name, African Game Lodge, made me think that this lodge would have lots of wild animals, but that’s not what you should expect here. It is more of a self-catering nature reserve than a game lodge, with six whitewashed and thatched cottages well spaced apart and all with stunning reserve views.
There are some cheetah in enclosures (because if they were free-roaming, 
they would inevitably escape and probably get shot by farmers). You can pay for a close-up big cat encounter with Duma, the tamest cheetah, and hear him purring in extra loud raptures at being stroked.
I was really impressed with Garden Route Game Lodge. It is of course ’soft safari’, as are all the game reserves in the Western Cape. It is because this populated region doesn’t have tracts of spare land the size of small European countries - like Kruger Park - in which the largest African animals can roam in complete freedom.
Garden Route Game Lodge is within sight of a major highway, yet as you drive in and see some elephants and look over domed hills to distant mountains, the memory that you turned off a major road just minutes before, fades into insignificance.
The transformation is that quick.
It is not often that I get the chance to sleep within the sounds of snoring elephant, but I did at the Knysna Elephant Park guest house, Elephant Lodge. I also had the chance to ride one of the elephants, all of whom have been rescued and now make up a tight knit herd. Knysna Elephant Park are one of the good guys of elephant back riding, with strong ethics and the welfare of their animals paramount.
When Harry met Carrie
Harry is the dominant bull of the herd and the largest at about 3 metres tall. I felt like a pimple on his back, my legs didn’t even reach the end of the blanket.
Harry is enormous, and I had my arms firmly clasped around my softly-spoken guide. Harry was born in 1989, but arrived at Knysna Elephant Park with Sally when he was 5 years old - still a real youngster. Harry is a gentle giant and shows tenderness towards the babies, which is apparantly unusual for a bull elephant.
Harry and I were going along nicely when he decided it was time for bed and started trotting across the field towards his bed chamber. The Knysna Elephant Park ele’s have very nice quarters, each with their own stable (somewhat larger than for a horse) filled with leafy branches to strip and a bed of hay and straw. When an elephant trots, especially one the size of Harry, you know about it and I felt rather wobbly and liable to fall off at any minute. 
If you want to buy into ‘Green Tourism’, Grootbos Private Nature Reserve, about an hour and a half from Cape Town, should be on your list. It has been winning Responsible and Environmental Tourism awards since 2000.
When the exuberant owner of Grootbos, Michael Lutzeyer, told me the story of how he slowly but surely acquired pieces of land he couldn’t afford, to create his own spectacular, ocean-facing, private nature reserve, I was inspired. It made me wonder if I too could kick-start my dream in the same way and find my own piece of paradise. Then I realised I would never have sufficient hyperactive energy, such a driven work ethic, or the ability to talk my way into or out of anything, in the way that Lutzeyer can and does.
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Here I am, gobsmacked, at Elandsfontein Private Nature Reserve, about an hour north of Cape Town along the West Coast.
It’s so blimmin’ nice here and I hadn’t expected it. Sonqua Manor - the accommodation on the Elandsfontein reserve - is a full-on safari lodge of the best sort, in an area where good taste is not usually a driving factor. (Nearby lagoon-side Langebaan town is a prime example of bad taste houses in a beautiful setting).
But Sonqua Manor isn’t like that. It’s got safari style in abundance, allowing the gently undulating, fynbos wilderness to take centre stage. Completely open to the view, the lounge and dining areas have no front wall, which forces you to stare out to the low bush and a horizon of blue sky.
There’s a constant hum of insects, frogs, birds and bees, with the occasional antelope, buffalo, zebra or ostrich breaking the blurred outline of the bush. I keep looking up from my screen to admire it and to see what bird is chirping so loudly or whether the leaf-mimicking bug has moved. Then pop! my laptop battery goes - oh what the hell, do I really have to work right now?
Visitors often ‘do‘ Cape Town in three days as part of a South African holiday, which is of course impossible. It also means you don’t get to venture into the further reaches of the Western Province and find special places like Bushman’s Kloof.
In the Cederberg Mountains, 4 hours (168 miles) north of Cape Town, is a wild-west movie set kind of place, with sand tracks of red-earth winding through giant wind-sculpted boulders. Perfect ambush country. It’s in this landscape that I found Bushman’s Kloof. Bushman’s Kloof reserve is a privately owned conservation success story, as a result of its protection of indigenous flora and fauna and its great store of historic bushman paintings. The Bushmen (now referred collectively as San) lived in these Cederberg Mountains many thousands of years ago, and left a legacy of rock art in caves and overhangs. This reserve alone has 130 ancient art sites dating back 10,000 years and the area has been declared a South African Natural Heritage Site.
