Naples Illustrated – September 2019

NAPLESILLUSTRATED.COM | SEPTEMBER 2019 45

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By Daphne Nikolopoulos

Born to be WILD

ESCAPE

A mother opens her daughter’s eyes to the wonders

of an African safari—both the seen and the unseen

rom the sky, the sprawling bushveld

of the Phinda Private Game Reserve

looks endless, the saturated green of its

mountains fading as the peaks stretch

to all points of the horizon. I can see

the airstrip below, a thin band of red earth where the

woodland gives way to dense grasslands. Our single

prop plane banks to meet it.

“Mom, do you think we’ll see a bush baby?” My

daughter, Annie, has been poring over a South Afri-

can wildlife book since I told her we were going on

safari to celebrate her tenth birthday.

“There’s a good chance,” I tell her, “but this isn’t a

zoo. We’ll have to track it.”

From the ground, the land looks very different.

Acacias, the queens of the thornveld, sprout among

golden grasses and offer meager shade from the

searing sun of the thirtieth parallel south. We meet

our ranger, Clive, who hurries us into the open-top