The idea was simple: head off into the bush and redefine what ‘wellness’ means. To my mind the word, the concept is a mite anodyne. Beige. Clinical even. Really, it should be a catch-all for everything that instils a sense of renewed optimism. With that in mind, I enlisted the help of four partners well versed in the art of bringing joy: the luxury safari company Wilderness, the iconic Victoria Falls Safari Lodge, Fastjet, the region’s newest airline, and Kariba’s premium lodge, Fothergill. My thinking was that, between them, they’d be able to rustle up a whole truckload of ‘wellness’.
WELLNESS = ADRENALINE
The elephant that Jasper knew
Fothergill, Kariba
It’s difficult to explain how life-changing it is to be on Lake Kariba. As the sun sets, the ancient Matusadona Range lights up, elephants amble down to the water’s edge, avoiding the glut of crocs and hippos, keen on their own sundowner. And if you stay at Fothergill, that most upmarket of lodges on the far banks of the lake, you can amble too. We’d been walking for about half an hour when it happened. Suddenly, there he was. A bull, drinking on the shore, just over the ridge, 200 metres away. ‘Crouch,’ said Jasper, our Fothergill guide, ‘be quiet, stay downwind, let him sense us.’ We crouch-crawl around to his right, making sure he has a direct, easy escape route into the bush when he does finally see us.
It happens suddenly, sight and sense at the same time.
‘Allgoodallgoodallgood!’ Jasper’s sharp whisper. He stands up from his crouching position, strides forward, takes off his hat like he’s waving goodbye to a maiden aunt from Platform 3. The bull stops abruptly, head swinging side to side, legs wide apart. There’s communication clearly, a moment of recognition, a sideways step, the tail falls, all is indeed good.
Through a camera viewfinder it was wholly unreal. But look up, truly, it’s only on the ground at knee height that you realise how big an elephant is.
WELLNESS = INSPIRATION
The house that Silvio and Lesley built
Wilderness, Jao Camp
‘And this is your suite’. The staff at Jao Camp in the heart of the Okavango are obviously used to what comes next, because there’s a silence. I gasp. They laugh. It’s part of the theatre. And this is high opera. In 30 years of visiting safari lodges I’ve never seen anything like it. Triple volume, airy and cosy at the same time. And something else… I realise it’s the beautiful chaos. Nothing in nature is uniform or matches, and architects Silvio Rech and Lesley Carstens have taken that and played; there are no straight lines, no neat intersections. Instead a higgledy-piggledy coming together of textures, angles and attitudes. It’s astonishing. There’s more: look closely at the roofs, internal ‘thatch’ and wooden floors and they are in fact plastic. Recycled plastic. Beautifully and carefully made, wrapped around a steel frame. Stunning and inspiring.
WELLNESS = HUMBLENESS
Death of a day
Victoria Falls Safari Lodge balcony
The irony wasn’t lost on me – I had come to the Victoria Falls Safari Lodge to experience its expansive, full-service new spa, set aside from the main buildings in the mopani woodlands. And yet, here it was, the pivotal deep hush moment, on the other side of the property, four stories up with a busy waterhole far below. The Saf Lodge deck is known for its lively sundowner culture but, as the day bled away in a series of ever-more scarlet shades of Martian, the crowd quietened, quietened, fell to silence. Below, the last of the marabou storks had risen to the ancient baobab for the night, a kudu reflected in the blood-red water and even the ubiquitous call of the African collared dove stopped. Pause, breathe and then a single, ‘oh my’ from the back broke the spell. Cameras, laughter, even a tinge of embarrassment. Crossing the threshold; such is the power of the African cure.
WELLNESS = RELEASE
The hyena pool party
Wilderness Mombo Camp
There are days out in the bush when it’s as far from Disney as its possible to be. This day had been one of those – savaged warthogs, giraffes killed in combat, hippo strikes. Visceral. (And viscera – lions always leave the stomachs.) And then, as is so often the case, balance. Driving through the jackalberry forest on the way home to Mombo Camp’s famous risotto on the deck, suddenly a glissando of giggles. To the left of our cruiser a single hyena matriarch, head cocked, ears twitching, clearly as intrigued as we are. She loped off in the direction of the commotion, leading us to a large waterhole in the forest. There, one, two, five, ten more hyenas having… a pool party. An hour later back at camp, risotto demolished, I had to check the photographic evidence. It had felt less like voyeurism, more like slipping into a parallel universe where hyenas as we know them had morphed into The Brady Bunch living their best big family life. Leaping, laughing gambolling carnivores, awesome weaponry used instead to
dunk fellow revellers. The love. The joyful, carefree release.
WELLNESS = NOSTALGIA
Remembrance of things past
Fastjet, above Lake Kariba
‘It’s the light.’ Next to me, tall, friendly looking, he’s watching me watching the scene below.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘The light. On the water. There’s nowhere like it. We used to come here every summer with the family, and then when I was older, a group of mates. For months beforehand we’d wind each other up about what we would – and wouldn’t – catch. The tiger fishing was special, really special.’
Before I can answer, Fastjet’s Embraer120 banks, loses altitude and descends into the mopani scrubland edging Lake Kariba.
Here and there baobabs stand sentinel, ancient observers of so much. The captain’s voice announces the imminent landing. It’s hard to explain how I feel. This ancient landscape. So many memories. The best of times.
My new friend might be talking about my own history with Kariba. How many rites of passage were played out on these shores? For us high school tearaways it was all about getting into Caribbea Bay without paying, four stuffed in the boot, two over the fence, lots of laughter. About camping for weeks in December’s powerful heat, jumping off the pier, maybe borrowing a boat from a dad. The long, winding trek up the mountain to Kariba Heights, that astonishing village built by the Italians. For that view. And the outdoor cinema. All those shared experiences. And now here we are, years later.
‘It’s got to be different hasn’t it?’ He’s watching the lakeshore get closer.
‘I’m sure. But that’s OK. What’s really important hasn’t changed.’ It’s good to have Kariba back again, within easy reach.
Two weeks later and a monstrous urban sprawl opens up below me, the 737 banks, life is about to return to normal. It turns out that wellness is a journey rather than a state of mind, a trip preferably through a landscape as extraordinary and complex as south central Africa. It’s a reminder of what’s genuinely important. The Delta and Zambezi doesn’t have to trade in spas and retreats. It is wellness itself.
by Peter Frost
