Makweti will touch your soul

Are you familiar with a classic fairy tale about a beautiful princess who pricks her finger and falls into a deep sleep? Whilst Beauty sleeps, a briar forest springs up around the castle, shielding its sleeping inhabitants from the outside world.

Outsiders wishing to penetrate this natural barrier find that touching the thorns of this forest causes certain death. You're forgiven if you arrive at Makweti Lodge in South Africa's Limpopo Province and discover yourself falling into a similar enchantment, except this is an entirely African enchantment.

View our stunning Makweti gallery.

Makweti (only 3 hours from Johannesburg) is named after the giant cactus-like euphorbia candelabrum, a succulent that has its roots right through Africa's Giant Rift Valley, all the way up to the Horn of Africa. Here, in the heart of the Waterberg's Welgevonden Reserve, plenty of these oh-so-African plants rise up out of the rocky crags to form a protective cluster for the restive human residents.

Stunning Makweti Lodge. Image by Nick van der Leek.

Between a charming rope bridge and the Lodge's spacious timber perch - a platform overlooking the pristine forested valleys of the Waterberg - is a particularly tall, weathered stem with an enormous green candelabra on top. This Makweti tree is old, it's rumoured to be more than 900 years old. And like the fairy tale, the sap of the Makweti can kill. Bushmen used it for fish-hunting but others have used the sap, mixed with honey, as a purgative.

The Makweti Lodge experience does exactly that. It is one of those rare places in the world where there is complete silence. It is a place where trees can grow old, where people can purge themselves of the noise in their heads. Between the Makweti and the dry deciduous forest this ancient landscape teems with life. There are vervet monkey and baboons foraging constantly alongside the charming balconies - these can be viewed from the plunge pool or any of the five luxurious thatch suites hewn into the rocky substrate.

When we arrived we found an extended family of Warthog camped in the garden beside the entrance, and on our way to our suite were distracted by Impala, Kudu, Zebra - around fifty animals - congregating just beyond the deck of the reception area. Our guide, Jacques, who had been waiting to show us to our suite, instead offered a long lens to bring us even closer to the river of stripes and horns moving around us.

Stunning Makweti Lodge. Image by Nick van der Leek.

We spent just two days at Makweti and what a memorable experience it was. The nature provides the magic, but the human element has been designed to harmonise with the surroundings - so much so that you shouldn't be surprised to find a baboon sitting on your balcony.

Dinner in the Boma, under the stars, where guests share a long, single table - another medieval touch - is a winner. The bonfire roaring behind the silver brims of wine glasses creates a wonderful setting for recounting the sights and sounds of the game drives earlier in the day. The food has the feudalistic feel of the Chaine des Rotisseurs, a tradition of cooking art that blends beautifully to the style of the South African palette.

It is difficult not to be effusive about Makweti. The Clare Abbot animal prints are perfect, the veiled poster beds, solid furniture and dark rock sculptures suitably classy and romantic, the lounges and bathrooms echo earthy African themes ideal for this quintessentially relaxing setting.

Stunning Makweti Lodge. Image by Nick van der Leek.

If you really want to be critical you could complain that some suites don't have television, that there is no cell phone coverage or that there's no internet access [unless you use the facilities in the office]. Of course, these things defeat the purpose of coming to Makweti. Here, nature has to be seen, heard and felt, and to do so one has to purposefully move away from distractions, and into the stillness.

In the original Sleeping beauty (La Belle au Bois dormant) by Charles Perrault the Beauty sleeps in the enchanted wood for a hundred years. At Makweti Lodge you'll find such a place; here peace and magic exists inside a pristine wilderness that has grown undisturbed for hundreds of years. And here you'll find the silence of your heart's content, food for your soul and the touch of nature where you need it most.

	Visit this stunning piece of the Limpopo province and delight in nature. We highly reccommend it.