Safari by gondola? Luxe African vacations get a cool new twist
The founders of the US-based Under Canvas brand are reinventing the safari by marrying novel experiences with cutting-edge conservation methods
ON ANY given day, countless Land Rovers “bushwhack” through the African savannah – that’s safari slang for off-roading – helping wildlife enthusiasts spot everything from lions to pangolins. There are fleets of hot air balloons, canoes and pontoon boats, too, all offering different vantages of the continent’s vast biodiversity. But there’s only one solar-powered cable car system meant to get you eye-to-eye with giraffes or hovering above baobab branches.
When it opens in May, the six-seat Solfari gondola will be a new claim to fame for the Unesco-designated Vhembe Biosphere Reserve, in South Africa’s little-visited Limpopo province. The amenity will be exclusive to guests of a new luxury lodge there, the six-suite, solar-powered Few & Far Luvhondo, where rates start at US$1,800 per person per night.
This aerial amenity is the invention of Jacob Dusek, who with wife Sarah Dusek founded the American glamping company Under Canvas. After selling the company to KSL Capital Partners for more than US$100 million in 2018, the pair moved to Cape Town and launched a venture capital firm to invest in female-run African companies. By fall 2019 the firm was smoothly up and running, and the pair yearned to return to their nature-tourism roots in their newly adopted homeland.
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