Do It Go

For international reputations in boutique hotels, South Africa has something amazing going on.  Boutique hotels are intended to give the guests something extra, a unique style and design that chains simply cannot offer.  And South Africa, being an extremely unique place on the globe, is unusually well-situated in this regard.  Guests at our hotels will certainly find the usual amenities and extras that are a part of the package at all luxury hotels, with fine dining, exercise rooms, excellent facilities for business and leisure, and a very helpful concierge.  There is much more, however, as each of our hotels is uniquely designed for flair and panache.  Guests will find themselves enjoying a sense of rejuvenation, in an atmosphere created by some of South Africa’s most accomplished designers.

Cape Town, where many of the boutique hotels are located, is one of the main cultural hubs of the continent, and the world.  It is a lively city with a long and often extremely difficult history.  Here, one can find all sorts of things to do to keep every member of the family occupied, and many tours will touch on the local history and important events.  For night life, the city is amazing, with a buzz of activity that is truly astonishing.  Some lucky travelers might find themselves enjoying a fantastic meal and later catching the Nigerian group Ayetoro playing at a local club.

Ayetoro, whose name means “world of peace” in Yoruba, plays classic high life music, and they have a splendid reputation in world music.  It is no wonder, then, that they would play Cape Town regularly.  Tourists here will come to recognize that Cape Town is an extremely diverse place, and seems to get a lot of its infectious energy from blending cultures, as well as constantly embracing innovation.  Nigerian high life music is an unusual blend of African traditional rhythms and Western jazz, so it’s no leap of logic to see how this band would find a welcome audience in Cape Town.  Here, there is a world culture that emerges from a long history of cultural exchange, and the coming years will be fascinating to witness as Cape Town continues its evolution on the world stage.

Tags: Ayetoro, boutique hotels, South Africa
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Bonnie Ntshalintshali was a brilliant South African ceramicist. She was born in 1967, on a farm in KwaZulu. By the time she was eighteen, she was working for an artist, Fee Halsted-Berning, as an assistant in her studio near Pietermaritzburg. Halsted-Berning noticed very early on that Ntshalintshli was talented in both painting and sculpture, and encouraged her to pursue creating her own pieces. Just three years later, she beganreceiving awards, first the Corobrik Ceramics Award and then the Young Artist Award that was give to both she and Halsted-Berning by the Standard Bank. She also began studying with sculptors Ian Calder and Juliet Armstrong at the University of Natal. She started to create images of her own sculptures, in silk screen and they were exhibited in Grahamstown at the Print Festival.

She began by building or coiling the clay. Her forms are complex and innovative and once they were fired she painted them with intricate detail. She created visual stories on the pottery, mixed her views and her understanding of western culture and imagery with that of her traditional Zulu images. She was said to have piled the stories in layers. Her work is in high demand, represented at many of the fine galleries and luxury hotels South Africa supports throughout the entire country as well as in the top collections in the United Kingdom and the United States.

During the early 1990′s she presented shows in Seville and participated in the Venice Biennial. That exhibit was part of a touring show that was also put up in Amsterdam and in Rome. She traveled to Germany and was the guest of state functions and dinner parties. She did this all as a single parent. During the late 1990′s she began working from home due to her health issues. In 1999 she passed away due to ailments related to HIV. She is survived by her daughter, and by her tremendous body of work.

Tags: Bonnie Ntshalintshali, Daughter, Fee Halsted-Berning, luxury hotels, South Africa, University of Natal, Venice Biennial
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Okay, so I finally got to go on a real South African Safari. I went to a private game reserve and found that is has one of the Best Hotels South Africa offers and the accommodations are unique.  I got an exclusive experience of the African wilds an excellent game viewing without the jostle of other jeeps. Animal sightings were up-close-and-personal at this private reserve. The beasties, apparently, are used to human presence. I even took a guided walking tour because I arrived at the right time, September, where the grass isn’t too high and the weather’s not too hot.

I received an exhaustive checklist for recording sightings of everything flora and fauna. Of course, all the biggies are one the list and on the reserve, such as a dozen leopards, close to 36 elephants, 21 lions consisting of 2 prides, 20 white rhinos and tons of buffalo. Now because the reserve is on the small side, basically the size of Wales and fenced in with Thornybush, sightings are frequent and I got close enough to see a baby kicking inside a pregnant giraffe and watch a leopard’s belly rise and fall while is slept after a kill (it’s victim was stashed up in a tree right beside our vehicle).

After observing the colossal elephants tear down trees, a family of four southern white-faced scops owls blinking in the sun and lions feasting on a freshly killed giraffe (yes lions can take down a giraffe), I needed to take a break and write in my journal. I needed a collective on animal nouns like a crash of rhinos, a journey of giraffes or a dazzle of zebras. My mind was stimulated like it never has been before. Actually watching nature, not on some television show, but actually being in the middle of the struggle to survive this harsh wilderness, made me come alive. I will forever be grateful that Africa is doing it’s best to keep this treasure from extinction.

Tags: best hotels, Safari, South Africa, Thornybush, Wles
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