This year Londolozi celebrates a massive milestone: Her 90th birthday.
As you can imagine, nine decades of safari has countless chapters and each one has bought with it adventures, friendships, family and priceless moments. The sense of grace, love and gratitude is immense and in fact we struggle with where to begin expressing something so profound.
But as we glance back at our journey, there are three threads that forever weave themselves at the core of the Londolozi story and these steadfast keys are the restoration of land, the wildlife and the people… Mother nature in all her forms…
So this year we’ve decided that just one big party wouldn’t do this journey justice. Instead we’re going to dedicate a year to the momentous occasion; we’re going to live the celebration. We’re going to thank the land for the inspiration and sustaining power it has given us, we’re going to celebrate the mother leopard who bought us her wisdom and the way forward and we’re going to celebrate the people that have enriched the tapestry of Londolozi’s 90 year history.
To do this properly, we need to start where it all began. And so we begin with a celebration of the soil, the roots, the winds and the rain that originally drew us all to this landscape and has sustained this magical place over time. The land lies at the foundation of our story; it was here long before we came and it and will continue long after we are gone.
Join us in celebrating the gift of having a landscape, that at our core, we all belong to….
From miles away I called to you……as a longing for wildness.
I called in the way the heart calls for freedom…
I called you with the roar of a lion and like all true pioneers you answered by walking silently into the midst of my empty vastness.
I gave you the shade of a tree to call home and a river to sing to.
Here I grew you with sunlight and silence. I began to teach what it means to belong to a landscape.
Even as you hunted I was watched you awaken to a deep truth of our oneness.
Every year in the winter you came. I watched you grow. Those mud huts rose and the seasons welcomed you.
I knew your grandfather and your father, your children and their children. I know all who have been drawn here before they arrive and long after they are gone.
My resonance makes you the way you are.
A steward of all things natural, a servant of trees and a custodian of wildness.
I put in you the spirit of what we now stand for.
As you partnered with me and worked on where cattle had stripped me bare I thanked you with plains of grass to welcome animals.
What made you special was how deeply you could listen.
In quiet moments I asked you to share me.
Under my guidance the camps grew and the people came.
You took the fences down and I thanked you with herds of elephants
The mother leopard came from me to serve the vision. And she drew wonder from all corners of the world.
I taught you to feel the unseen frequency of my love. And you made each safari a tribute to the depth of that feeling.
Like a tide I flowed out through you and returned with a new vision.
In sharing me with such authentic heart you have brought my essence to form…and as is co-creation my form has made your essence.
You say we have been together for 90 years….
Yet in the faint dreamscape of the infinite everywhen I know us as……timeless.
A place to inspire,
A place to share a new vision for the earth
A place for people and animals to be in harmony.
I am a platform for advocacy and a level of consciousness.
I am the restoration
I am….. Londolozi.
Written by Boyd Varty
![Kambula Pride Playing On Riverbank (6) [rcb]](https://media.londolozi.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/13085423/Kambula-Pride-playing-on-riverbank-6-RCB-280x178.jpg)
Happy Birthday Londolozi, you have part of the Ryan family forever with you. Our second home.
Amy, a wonderful start to a great year of celebration!
Congrats on turning 90 Londolozi Happy Birthday
Incredible beautiful video! Goosebumps.
Beautiful video, I loved it! Happy 90th Anniversary to Londolozi, the Varty family and every person who lives and works at Londolozi and makes it the very special and magical place, feeling and experience that it is. Londolozi is forever ingrained in the hearts and souls of every person fortunate enough to have been there. May you go on for another 90 years and beyond.
Happy 90th Londo! So grateful to celebrate the experience this coming May
Happy Birthday to the Must beautiful Place in the World keep on like this
Happy Birthday Londolozi! The world is a much better place with you in. We are all blessed to know you.
Happy Birthday Londolozi!
Londolozi – the best place in Africa’s- this is Paradise!
Great family and great traditions.
Congratulations!
Beautiful words. A beautiful place. Beautiful South Africa. Best of all, beautiful people. To the Londolozi family: Happy Birthday. May you enjoy many more.
Every morning is a celebration at Londolozi ! 90 years x 365 days = pure paradise… Thank you for sharing it with me every day when I type my ever changing passwords: Londolozi, Tugwaan, Ehrence, Mother, Manyelethi, CampPan, Maxabene, Mathebula, Mhangene, myPrince, Nottens, Dudley, and so many more… Dearest thoughts to those who are in charge of protecting the place and its inhabitants.
This is wonderful, the words and video. Londolozi is ingrained in my heart and soul, I was so fortunate to visit this beautiful place. Happy Birthday to Londolozi, all the people there and especially to the Varty Family. Thank you for all that you do.
Londolozi has kept a huge piece of my heart in her care since 1983. Some days the homesickness for Londolozi overwhelms me and brings tears to my eyes. Mahalo to everyone who is and has ever been involved with caring for the land and its inhabitants with love and laughter. Happy Birthday and aloha,
I watched this sitting at my desk, being transported instantly to your world. Thank you for the hard work, the never ending dedication to the land, helping it flourish, making it home to so many. Thank you for having the vision, thank you for giving the joy of knowing Africa to so many who visit and a passion to be passed on. Congratulations for the formidable difference you have made to the land, the animals and the people. What a remarkable thing to leave for the next generation and those after that. Thank you for my experience each time I visit Londolozi and all those who have connection to it. Congratulations x
This unbelievable place deserves to survive forever. For Wendy and myself, I think this is probably the most beautiful place we have ever been. In addition to all of the wonderful Big 5 and other incredible animals, let us not forget the magnificent bird life at Londolozi!
Inspirational. You listened.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY LONDOLOZI!
I AM SO NEW TO YOUR FAMILY BUT ENJOYING ALL THE JOY OF AFRICA.
KEEP WRITING.
Wow! Don’t know what to say. Incredible!
Incredible!!
Some days I am overcome by the longing to return to your wonderful home. Happy birthday to all of you and thank you for sharing Londolozi with us
A truly evocative piece. The words and images capture perfectly a very beautiful and special place… Happy 90th birthday Londolozi from us both.
Happy Birthday. And thank you for sharing your bit of wildlands with the world.
Magical!