There is something deep within us, perhaps something that is wired into our DNA from our stint as pre-humans. It’s something that lies dormant as we go about our daily lives raising our children, earning a living, and being citizens of the world. We did leave our oldest fossils in Africa, after all. In fact, they’re still turning up every year.
For most of our lives, we don’t even know that “something” is there. Until we set foot in Africa.
You feel it first, perhaps, as you return to camp from a game drive under a crystal-clear sky with the weirdly, beauteous outlines of baobab trees, sausage trees, and gigantic thimble-like termite mounds, all silhouetted against the dome of a Milky Way you have never seen burn with such brilliance.
Perhaps you catch the outline of a herd of elephants or a solitary rhino, or maybe a pod of hippo waddling out of the river to graze – all so prehistoric and odd in their shapes. Perhaps it dawns on you, that with the exception of your own presence (and that of the vehicle), absolutely nothing has changed in this landscape in 10 million years. Perhaps that is when this “something” awakens.
We believe that the stars do shine brighter in Africa, the sunsets are more colorful, the desert sand is softer, and the waters lapping the shores are clearer. We believe that storytellers have more wisdom in Africa, the people have a gentleness and humility we sometimes don’t, and the animals know that this is exactly where they belong.
Your heart will race watching millions of wildebeest crossing the Mara River during the Great Migration, and it will overflow dining on a romantic sandbar in the Indian Ocean.
Your heart will be full when you join locals on a full moon bike tour around Cape Town. It will sing watching 20 playful elephants bathe each other in a watering hole. It will be filled with wonderment watching a three-day-old lemur cling to her mother’s back in Madagascar. And it will pound with adrenaline on the great dunes of the Namibian deserts or among the reeds of the Okavango Delta.
Your heart will rest at ease knowing that your safari with us supports conservation of the world’s last great wilderness and promotes awareness of highly-endangered animals and ecosystems. It also supports dozens of locally conceived and locally managed projects that uplift and empower people, one at a time. Your travel with us helps ensure Africa’s future.
Visit our Idea Lab for some suggestions of how to immerse yourself just a bit more.
We always smile when a prospective client tells us, “I know this will be my only trip to Africa.” Our clients can’t stop coming back; some have been nearly a dozen times.
Perhaps they really didn’t believe us when we said that there is something different about Africa, that there is something within all of us that can only be awakened in Africa.
This is what the Africa of Heritage Tours is all about. And, from that spirit, everything follows… We endeavor to bring you closer to the soul of Africa – its animals, its landscapes, and its people.
Whether it’s your first time or you just went last year, for us, Africa is all about what lies within. Let our Africa bring it out in you.