Close your eyes. What do you smell? Right now it’s the African bushveld: an earthy blend of dust and vegetation, the sweetness of fermenting marula fruit, and perhaps a faint trace of elephant dung. What do you feel? Heat tempered by an evening breeze, the padded seat of the safari vehicle, and maybe a gentle buzz from a sundowner. What do you hear? Tonight, the resonant calls of ground hornbills — one of Africa’s most evocative sounds — and the sharp warning barks of a herd of impala.
Open your eyes. You are in Sabi Sands Game Reserve, a fenceless mosaic of private concessions bordering South Africa’s Kruger National Park, a protected wilderness roughly the size of Israel. You are in the concession that hosts Singita Ebony Lodge, seated in an open safari vehicle paused where two dirt tracks meet. Hornbills perch in a nearby tree; impala huddle in tall grass; and down one track a feline silhouette moves. Musa, the tracker, sits on a flip-down seat at the vehicle’s front and points. Marc, the guide, starts the engine and steers toward the movement. We have found a leopard.
This is both a game drive and a wellness experience. Singita has embraced a more holistic approach to wellbeing across its African lodges, from South Africa to Rwanda, ensuring that every part of your stay contributes to restoring body and spirit.
© Singita Ebony Lodge
Singita Ebony, the brand’s founding lodge established in 1993, offers 12 expansive, elegantly designed suites overlooking the Sand River. Our suite includes a private plunge pool from which we watch elephants cross to drink on the far bank, while vervet monkeys observe from a nearby tree and a solitary bushbuck moves through the undergrowth.
Returning to our suite, the warm, thatched-roof scent embraces us and transports me back to the safaris of my childhood. The link between scent and memory is powerful, so each Singita property carries a signature scent: a subtle, consistent aroma woven into small details like perfumed hand sanitizer, ensuring the lodge’s character becomes part of your memory.
Our leopard relies on scent too. With Musa safely in the vehicle, we follow her along the track. She moves not so much as walks but flows; her rosettes create a living pattern of light and shadow with every stride. She pauses to sniff a bush and curls back her upper lip in a distinctive grimace — the flehmen response. Another leopard has marked this spot, and she uses the Jacobson’s organ in the roof of her mouth to draw information from the scent.
© Richard Newton
Human senses cannot match a leopard’s, yet they can be renewed. My senses are refreshed by a treatment at Singita’s spa. My therapist, Tebogo — Tabs — grew up in Pretoria and now lives in a village on the reserve’s edge. She brings holistic practices to her community work and is raising funds to start a women’s soccer team as a positive focus for local women.
The treatment opens with a foot rub using sand gathered from the Sand River banks. Holistic or not, I cannot envy Tabs her task, but she assures me she has seen worse. Then I lie face down for a massage. With eyes closed, what do I hear? Birdsong: the steady coo of a Cape turtle dove and the varied twitters of many other species. Tabs places singing bowls on my back and plays them, producing vibrations that resonate through my body. What do I smell? The warm, detoxifying oil she works into my skin and the fresh scent of a light shower beginning outside. What do I feel? Deep harmony with my surroundings.
When the leopard drifts away, she dissolves into the landscape; one moment visible, the next she is gone. Yet in another sense she remains with us, and so does Singita. The lodge and the wild have imprinted themselves on our senses and our memories.
Singita Ebony Lodge
Sabi Sands Game Reserve
Hazyview 1242
South Africa
tel 27 21 683 3424