A thatched lodge with a rough timber pergola glows at dusk, lanterns lit, reflected in the still pool in front of it

South Africa  ·  The Kalahari

Tswalu Motse and Tarkuni

Kalahari launchpads for one of southern Africa’s last true wildernesses.

Tswalu is Kalahari, and the Kalahari is a different kind of safari. The Motse and Tarkuni are the two focal points of a stay here, the places you set out from each morning and return to when the light has gone red and then gone altogether. Both are built from organic materials and finished to the highest standard, and both are shaped by the warmth and hospitality of the people of the Kalahari, which is not a marketing line but a description of the place.

What Tswalu offers, more than anything, is room. This is one of southern Africa's last true wildernesses, and the reserve treats privacy and unfettered access as the essential amenities rather than optional extras. There is space here in a way that busier reserves have long since given up on.

A lounge under high thatch with a stone fireplace, woven pendant lamps, grey wingback chairs and a live-edge timber table
Stone, thatch and fire in the lounge
You do not come to the Kalahari to stay indoors. You come to go out into a desert that turns out to be alive, and then to come back to somewhere that understands what you have just seen.

The Motse and Tarkuni are launchpads, in the reserve's own phrase, and it is an accurate one. You do not come to the Kalahari to stay indoors. You come to go out into a desert that turns out to be alive, and then to come back to somewhere that understands what you have just seen.

Desert, done properly.

01

The Motse and Tarkuni

An open-sided thatched deck with a bed and cushioned seating, set in red-sand grassland at sunset
Thatch, cushions and red sand at sunset
A bathroom of rough stone walls under a reed ceiling, with a freestanding bath and twin copper basins on a timber counter
Stone, copper and reed
A curved blue pool edged by a timber deck, white umbrellas and aloes, red Kalahari sand beyond
The pool, with the Kalahari beyond

02

Out in the desert

Three cheetahs close together in golden grass, one grooming another
Cheetah, in the long grass
A black-maned lion lies on red sand looking to the right, thorn trees behind
Black-maned Kalahari lion
Three meerkats stand upright on red sand, watching
Meerkats
A table for two set beside a pool at night, lanterns along the deck edge and a starry sky above the trees
Dinner for two, under the Kalahari skyTswalu

Tswalu Motse and Tarkuni

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