There may be a better place to see wild animals, sleep in luxury, and eat outstanding and interesting food, but I do not know where. The lodge and bungalows have gone through major renovation in the last 3 or 4 years and are absolutely stunning. Your "room" is an elegant bungalow in modern bush style, has an enormous and extremely comfortable bed, big beautifully designed bathroom with shower looking out over the savanna and a huge deck with large day bed and private plunge pool. Baboons and little monkeys swing through the trees in front of your bungalow and sometimes on your roof; water buffalo, nyala, impala, and sometimes larger animals wander around the watering hole in front of the lodge and sometimes through the lodge, and because there are only 8 bungalows (16 guests maximum) you really feel the quiet and privacy of the reserve and the reality that these are wild animals that you are viewing.
From the moment we arrived -- greeted with cool moist towels and cold fruit drinks -- we felt pampered. The delicious meals were made to order and elegantly served. A polite "wake-up" knock on the door at 5:30 am was offered (and gratefully accepted). We were escorted to our rooms after dark each night (lest a stray animal endanger us). All of the staff were unfailingly helpful and cheery.
The animal viewing was nothing less than spectacular. As a Sabi Sands lodge, Simbambili has the advantage of having no fences to separate it from the huge adjacent Kruger National Park. So all of the animals can move freely between Kruger and the Sabi Sands. Furthermore, there are reciprocity agreements among the various Sabi Sands lodges that permit each to travel over the terrain of the others. As a result, the viewing area is huge and the viewing opportunities nearly unlimited.
The Simbambili touring schedule is well-conceived. The day begins just before dawn with a quick cup of coffee, juice, and a biscuit, then it's off to watch the sun rise over the African bush in a Land Rover with guide, tracker, and anywhere from 2 to 8 guests. After 1.5 to 2 hours you stop for a coffee and biscuit break, then continue with the safari for another hour. Around 9, you head back to the lodge for a delicious breakfast. Bush walks are a late morning option that we declined, preferring to nap to get ready for lunch (more yummy food) and the afternoon tour which begins at about 3:30 or 4 and lasts until sunset or occasionally an hour past. (Naturally, there is a break in the afternoon trip as well, with "sundowners" served from a tray that miraculously appears at the front of the Land Rover.) The hours just after sunrise and just before sunset are best for animal viewing, as most animals -- as well as sensible humans! -- nap during the midday. The evening meal was highlighted by varying locations -- once in the dining room, once on the veranda, one a "braai" out in the bush. Every one was elegant and delightful.
It is hard to convey how much our guide, Grant, and our tracker, Mumps, added to our tours. Grant is an incredible guide. As a trained zoologist (undergraduate and graduate degrees), he was a font of information about animal ethology. Even more importantly, he was able to convey this information in a compelling and articulate way. I'll never forget his account of the hardships of the life cycle of the lion -- the "king" of the jungle. And Mumps's ability to locate the animals was nothing short of amazing.
Simbambili is expensive, no doubt about it. But the three days we spent there were far richer and more memorable than the six days we spent at a lesser lodge in KwaZulu Natal -- at about the same total cost. One small indication of this is that the number of photographs I took at Simbambili -- many of them priceless -- was about double the number I took in twice as many days at the other lodge. If you travel this far to view the wild animals of South Africa, it would be foolish to settle for anything less.
