Mornings here begin on foot, walking the red sand with San guides across the private Intu Afrika Kalahari Game Reserve, 10,000 hectares of dunes and grassland scattered with camel thorn in the Namibian Kalahari. The camp takes its name from the suricate, the Kalahari’s meerkat, and its twelve walk-in tents follow the crest of a single long dune.
Oryx and springbok work the flats alongside wildebeest and ostrich.
Every deck looks down over the grassy pans at the dune’s foot, and the ground below the camp is rarely empty. Oryx and springbok work the flats alongside wildebeest and ostrich. Jackals trot along the edges, and a waterhole at the lodge draws some of that traffic within sight of the main deck. With so few tents strung along the dune, the evenings out on the deck stay quiet.
Out on the sand, the San guides read spoor the way others read a page, and an hour on foot with them reaches what no vehicle can. They stop at the plants of the dune slopes to explain what each one is used for as medicine, then turn to the skills of traditional desert life. One walk is included on every two-night stay, its pace set by whatever the morning’s sand turns up.
By sundowners, the sand has deepened from orange to crimson.
Open vehicles head out each morning and again in the late afternoon. The early run works the dune valleys while the light is low, and the later one stays out until the drinks come round. By sundowners, the sand has deepened from orange to crimson. Because the reserve is private land, guides can also lead quad bikes along the dunes, something visitors to national parks cannot do.
This part of the Namibian Kalahari is a country of long red dunes with grassland in the valleys between them and camel thorn along the low ground, opening into pans where the land flattens. From the top of the dune, the ridges run off towards the horizon with the pans pale against them, and game crossing the flats shows up from a long way off. After dark the same view turns upward, to a sky crowded with stars down to the dune line. Beneath it, the tents are spaced along the crest on either side of the main lodge.
The walk to breakfast follows the spine of the dune to an open-plan main building, its dining room, bar and lounge giving onto wide wooden decks. An infinity pool in front of them looks out over the same ground as the waterhole and the game it draws in. Canvas and timber rest lightly on the sand. Each tent has a private wooden deck facing the pans, and the showers inside are open to the sky, which in the Kalahari means washing under hard blue at midday and in crisp air after dark.
After dark the same view turns upward, to a sky crowded with stars down to the dune line.
The quieter hours between the morning walk and the afternoon drive go slowly, to the pool or the shade of a tent deck, or to a massage booked at the lodge. Evenings bring dinner in the main lodge or out on the decks, under the same stars. In season there is a second option, a barbecue laid out on a dune well away from camp, with the food cooked over coals as the light fades from the sand.
A light aircraft reaches the reserve’s pan airstrip from Windhoek in a short hop, with a road transfer as the alternative for those who prefer to arrive overland. That makes the lodge a natural bookend to a journey through Namibia, either a first taste of the desert after the long-haul flight or a last night of open space before it. For couples, the honeymoon tent is set apart from the others along the dune, far enough for its deck to feel like a camp of its own. That deck holds a private plunge pool facing the pans. Nobody overlooks it.
accommodation
Twelve walk-in canvas tents line the dune crest at Suricate Tented Lodge, each on a private wooden deck facing the pans below. Bathrooms are en-suite and open-air, so the shower runs under the Kalahari sky. One tent is kept for honeymooners, set apart from the rest, with its own plunge pool on the deck.
activities
San guides lead an hour-long morning walk across the private Intu Afrika reserve, reading spoor and the plants of the desert, and one walk is included on every two-night stay. Open-vehicle drives go out in the morning and late afternoon, the second ending with sundowners. Guided quad biking, massages and a seasonal dune barbecue are also offered.
conservation
The San guides who lead the morning walks at Suricate Tented Lodge share the tracking and plant knowledge of their own desert heritage. The lodge itself is small, twelve canvas tents on one long red dune within a private Kalahari wildlife reserve.
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our approach
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Whether by phone or in person, we work with you directly to shape something that is considered, personal, and expertly delivered.
