Africa’s Unique Selling Proposition is its wilderness, but at the current rate of development it’s disappearing fast.  Last year, fur flew over plans to surface the famous Sani Pass, with most people voicing concern that with a nice tarred road, those adventurers who are running out of places to have adventures would stay away.

And in a recent interview, Gary Player mentioned that he loved staying in the Karoo – as opposed to any other beauty spot on the planet – because there were few places on earth that still had some wilderness. But this wilderness is getting scarcer and scarcer.  Climb to the top of the most remote mountain, and you will find signposted routes and little eddies of plastic bags and cooldrink cans. Venture into the deepest jungle and you will find someone’s graffiti carved into a tree. The people who live in these wilderness areas are not interested in playing the noble savage either – they want refrigerators and Bic lighters and satellite TV.  Possibly the only reason why some areas have remained wild – like rural Alaska and the Congo jungle – is because it is so difficult to get there that no one can be bothered. Therefore it should be a pleasant surprise to find that South Africa still has bits of wilderness that are not too difficult to get to, and which have made an effort to be accessible without selling out. The Tembe Elephant Park and Ndumo Game Reserve spring to mind.  Ndumo is perhaps a little too challenging for anyone but the hardened adventurer, but Tembe has a secret weapon in the form of Tembe Safari Lodge.

I have been acquainted with this lodge since it was little more than a tent-flap.  One of the few privately owned lodges situated inside a game reserve, Tembe Lodge is a cluster of rustic canvas chalets under dense trees. 

It is also very different because it is owned and run by the neighbouring Tembe community.  There is something intangibly different about pure African hospitality.  There is nothing slick or artificial about it – it is as warm as a tropical breeze and as genuine as the night sky. The lodge offers the same services as any full-service lodge, with full board, walks and game drives, after-dinner singing and dancing – either to watch or to participate in.  But there is something more. Firstly, the pace is entirely different.  It is impossible to get impatient or frustrated with anything.  Time ceases to matter.  Only hunger pangs will tell you when it is getting near feeding hour.   Although, unfairly, there is a table under a lapa that is stocked round-the-clock with tea, coffee, Milo, hot water, rusks and cookies, so even the hunger pangs don’t get to complain. The game drives offer you something unusual, if not unique:  your ranger has grown up in the vicinity and got to know the animals and plants through an almost daily acquaintance.  The knowledge is personal.  Either Jabu or Sam will take you on a tour of what amounts to his front garden.  This gives a lot more value to the game drives. Tembe Elephant Park, of course, is famous for its, er, elephants.  The most famous of these is Isilo, who has his own Facebook page and visits the staff and guests of Tembe Lodge quite regularly.  Isilo is one of the last Great Tuskers.  Lodge  management describe him as an elderly gent with impeccable manners, who wanders around Tembe as lord of all he surveys.  The rangers know him well, and will go looking for him if he doesn’t deign to show himself.  The lodge also organises excursions to the nearby Border Caves – site of human habitation for the last 150 000 years – and day trips to Kosi Bay for swimming, snorkelling and canoeing. There’s also a partnership with nearby Ponta Mamoli, which is a beach resort just over the border in Mozambique.  Ponta specialises in scuba diving, but that is not the only reason to go there.   The lodge looks out over the sea, and it is possible, indeed it is probable, that one would spend the whole day watching the waves break on to the sand. This is accessible wilderness.  It is not going to take an age or lots of money to get there.  You get the feeling that the local people and animals are welcoming you into their world and it doesn’t take long to submerge yourself completely in another universe.  A world without deadlines or ringing phones or rushed appointments or things that need to be done now.  The days are measured out by the gentle crunching approach of Isilo, or the hypnotic pounding of waves on sand.   Nowadays it is hard to believe that places like that exist, or that we can still enjoy them.  The only shock is returning to the real world. Get more information from http://www.tembe.co.za/