Jewels of South Africa

“The whole town,” Captain Cook wrote in 1771 about Cape Town, “may be consider’d as one great Inn fitted up for the recreation of all comers and goers.” The great voyager may as well have been writing this week: Cape Town is one of the world’s jazziest, most fascinatingly multicultural and downright beautiful cities, a magnet for discerning goers and comers from six continents. Our base is the iconic Pink Lady, the Mount Nelson, from which we will gaze up at Table Mountain, which we will summit via the famed Aerial Cableway, a spectacular bit of engineering in service to an even more spectacular view. We’ll drive down the grand and wild Cape Peninsula to the Cape of Good Hope, around which much of the world’s history once turned. And we’ll motor into the Cape Winelands for tasting and leisurely lunch-taking, and view imbibing in one of the most salubrious spots in a region rich with human and natural splendour.

We fly northeast across South Africa’s gargantuan geographies to the private Phinda Reserve’s seven distinct habitats— woodlands, grasslands, wetlands, rolling hills, rivers, seasonal marshes and pans, and a hauntingly beautiful sand forest— Africa’s last sand forest— all home to a superb wildlife medley (which includes the Big Five and 436 bird species).

We’ll settle, depending on the season, into one of two outstanding camps at Phinda Private Game Reserve: either the Phinda Forest Lodge, set in that marvelous sand forest, with “glass bubble” suites that bring us into cozy contact with the sweetly enveloping sand forest, or the Phinda Mountain Lodge, set on a hilltop with wraparound views of the verdurous Lebombo foothills.

Each lodge features beguiling infinity pools, festive outdoor dining under South Africa’s intense but friendly stars, birdsong and the twittering of bush babies, and deep tranquility as we rest up from our game driving forays into Phinda’s remarkable microregions.

Thornybush’s setting is classically African: more than 34,000 sweeping acres on a private nature reserve sharing a fenceless border with famous Kruger National Park—so for our footloose animals, that’s no border at all. Big 5 encounters are both the standard and the standout experience here (including sightings of the endangered, marvelous-looking pangolin, well-protected in Thornybush). Set on a beautiful curve of the meandering Monwana River, Saseka Tented Camp has just nine luxurious, stylishly decorated tents, each with glass doors opening onto a river-view deck complete with a pool and outdoor shower. (Those tents are exemplars of our adage that tents in Micato’s Africa resemble the tents of our youth as a fresh-from-the factory Bentley resembles a Model T.)

The very private, very beautiful Sabi Sand Game Reserve is one of our favourite African places. Adjacent to Kruger National Park, the 240-square-mile Sabi Sand is home to all of Kruger’s famously rich roster of animals—including, of course, the Big Five—who wander freely between Sabi Sand and the much more humanly thronged national park. Our domicile in this surpassingly lovely corner of Africa is the conveniently modern (and solar-powered) Tengile River Lodge, set in a riverside forest, with only nine soothingly secluded, thoughtfully luxurious suites, each with a private plunge pool.

We fly to Johannesburg, and on to full-service, meals-included day rooms at the InterContinental, whose spa and indoor pool beckon, before our Safari Director accompanies us to the adjacent — it’s only 250 feet away — international airport for our flights home.

Connect with your flights home and sweetly dream, perhaps, about your next Micato safari.