Omaanda, in a sense...

OMAANDA. In a sense…

Omaanda had me at coffee table books. Yes, books, not book. It was love at check-in. Of course the welcoming party of zebras in their splendid graphic design also made an impression. As did the understated but oh so carefully put together English Patient meets Out of Africa elegance of the architecture and interior design.

But those books…

What exactly, I contemplated as I sipped the zingy iced tea welcome drink and my eyes drifted to the big blue sky floating up from a perfect infinity pool, does the term “luxury” and “boutique” mean here, in the context of the bush? (I still wanted to ask for the ice tea recipe.)

Would it refer, as per dictionary, to 1) - a state of great comfort or elegance, especially when involving great expense or 2) - an inessential, desirable item which is expensive or difficult to obtain?

Or is it 3) - a pleasure obtained only rarely?

It was around this time that I noticed the first book. It was quietly and elegantly lying on a coffee table in one of the “being spaces” that the lodge seems to consist of: Havana Legendary Cigars. And in another being space: The Art of Flying. Large, absolutely dashing. Leonardo da Vinci...

The door to our room was a custom-made specimen of exotic origin as every nook and cranny of this aesthetic dwelling seems to be. And then, just as you want to make up your mind, the space inside reserves and calms down. Impeccable, the attention to detail that you would not even notice if you were not there to notice. You would just feel at absolute ease and very satisfied and you wouldn’t even know why.

Another book casually graces a lower shelf of the writing desk. The World of Departures - Richard David Story.

Lunch. There are pleasing round shapes - of tables, fire pits and platters. And from every possible perspective: the bush, of course. For dinner gemsbok by the waterhole and prepared in a manner that was previously not believed humanly possible. Dinner and a show.

Yes, yes - the courtesies and kindnesses, everybody knows your name and you are wished well and welcomed on fine, thick paper and every little thing is thought of.

But there is a fireplace that sits between the bath and the bedroom and this, this is a pleasure rarely obtained. The time and place and space to savour big, beautiful books about things unthought of before, an indulgence in art, words, pictures and thoughts put together so spectacularly. To look up from said book to see the wilderness of Africa going about being as it would have even if you didn’t exist - these are pleasures rarely obtained.

What I leave with is not an exact answer to the definition of boutique, luxury lodge, but rather an elusive impression of textures, the way the light fills a space, the lines and shapes of things, the gravity of books and the rare pleasure of a deep but subtle sense of being.

Christine Hugo