well travelled
Too excited to sleep on my first morning at Camp Unicorn, I rise early from my rondavel and wander along the dirt track. As I turn a corner, I come upon a family of vervet monkeys, gentle and wide-eyed. Around another, I nearly collide with a small, toeecoloured antelope with big, silky ears – later, I learn it is a female nyala. I watch until she bounds o in a graceful, soundless leap, over a cluster of bright pink bougainvillea. It’s all so fantastically removed from the English winter I’ve left behind, and yet South Africa is my parents’ homeland – the country they left so many years ago, at a time when apartheid rule blighted everything. Theirs is a land I’ve only occasionally returned to, with mixed feelings, knowing the hardships they faced.
And yet, when I have made the journey, the connection I’ve felt is undeniably deep and elemental and takes me by surprise. Lost in thought, it’s a few moments before I spot the enormous grey hide of an animal beyond the camp fence. The shape moves – and fleetingly I’m gazing into the eyes of an eland, a giant antelope with horns that twist and spiral magnificently.