Independent

Marataba Mountain Lodge

Marakele National Park, South Africa

Marataba Mountain Lodge offers seekers a soulful safari adventure, a place to balance alone time and meaningful connections with others who share this approach to life. This remote retreat overlooks the breath-taking Waterfall Valley, with wide-angle vistas of the Waterberg escarpment. Fully solar powered, five private Luxury Rooms blend into the environment, and offer a king-sized bed, fireplace, en-suite rain shower, and shaded viewing deck. On hotter days, guests can enjoy the guest pool at the main lodge. Enjoy game drives with our professional field guides, bush walks, morning and sunset water safaris, or a night under the stars in Thabametsi Treehouse. Bush dinners and boma dinners are filled with conversation of all the adventure of a safari. Marataba is a privately managed section of the malaria-free Marakele National Park. The park is a ‘place of sanctuary’, as its Tswana name suggests, conserving 67 000ha (165 560ac) of the Limpopo Waterberg’s biodiversity, as well as Iron Age sites of great historical significance. The game here is impressive in number and diversity due to Marataba’s location in a transition zone between the dry western and the wetter eastern regions of South Africa. Its wildlife includes the Big Five and abundant bird species, with the largest colony of endangered Cape vultures (including 800 breeding pairs) in the world to be found here. Rare plant species of yellowwood and cedar trees, ancient cycads, and fern trees flourish here. Marataba is also malaria free.