South Africa 2025 -Umlani Bushcamp- How I arrived at the bush
The first time I went to South Africa, I skept the Kruger National Park.
I was focusing on diving and that was the only thing I did for 10 days. Everybody called me « idiot », so I had to come back to fix my reputation.
I sit in front of the laptop, flicking through the various proposals. They all look amazing and it is very hard to make a choice. Then I remember that my friend Gaby was in South Africa a few years earlier and I asked her advice.
That’s how I end up at Umlani Bushcamp, in the Greater Kruger, in Timbavati Private Nature Reserve.
That means that I’m staying in a private reserve, that is unfenced so that the animals are free to move from and to Kruger Park area.
I contact them, and organize my stay for 4 nights and 5 days, I will arrive on the 28th of December 2024 and will leave on the 1st of January 2025.
I will meet the New Year 2025 in the middle of the wildlife.
I’m overexcited as this was one of the items on my bucket list since I was a kid.
I just can’t wait to do it.
I take my flight from Durban early in the morning coming back from Sodwana Bay and arrive in Hoedspruit. Everything goes smoothly, I meet the driver that helps me with my big suitcases (I have double set of diving equipment, one for the Indian Ocean and one for the Atlantic Ocean) and we start the journey to the camp.
As soon as we cross the gate, we are in the wild. You spot elephants and giraffes as you go and some of them are really close to the edge of the road, so I can really admire them very closely.
The driver tells me that this is just the appetizer.
As we watch a big male with a broken tusk, he explains me that elephants are « left-tusked » or « right-tusked » exactly as we are left-handed or right-handed, and that’s explain why some of them have a broken tusk.
We arrive at the camp and I am attended at the reception. I finish all the admission formalities, then I get help for my big suitcases and in front of the puzzled looks, again I have to explain the story of the double diving equipment.
The guests are accommodated in huts. There are around 8 huts and all of them are named after a wild animal. I get hut n. 7. The lion one. It’s in bamboo. While the staff accompanies me, I’m explained the security rules.
During the day it is safe to go around.
As the night comes, after dinner the guests are escorted to their huts and they are forbidden to go out and walk around in the camp by themselves.
That’s because the camp is unfenced and you may have animals coming and going and you don’t want to feed lions with yourself. If you need to get out of your hut in the night, call the staff with the walkie talkie.
I settle in my bamboo hut and wait to go on the first game drive of my package, which will be in a couple of hours.
