South Africa's most exclusive and secluded safari lodge - Tswalu Kalahari

Hey guys and welcome to another Laura and Niklas vlog. So we made it to Tsuwalu in the Kalahari Desert here in South Africa, which is probably one of the most secluded and exclusive lodges in the world. And we can't wait to take you with us the next few days. But first, let's go back to this morning. Good morning guys. So we just got picked up at our airport hotel and we made it now to Fireblade Aviation, which is pretty much like the private jet airport here in Johannesburg. Because yeah, as you can see from the title of our video and from the intro, we're going to Tsuwalu and we are so excited, super excited. We can't wait. It's like a place that's been on our bucket list for so many years, literally for years. Yeah. And now it's finally happening. Ever since we found out about Tsuwalu, we were like, oh my God, we have to go there. You will see why. It is finally happening. You will see why. We're going to wait for our flight to leave. It will leave in an hour. In the meantime, we're just going to have breakfast, have a little coffee because it's 6.30 in the morning. And we didn't have our coffee yet. And you know, we need our coffee first thing in the morning. We're just going to wait for our plane and you'll see the full journey until we get into Tsuwalu. Let's go. We made it. That was beautiful. We made it to Tsuwalu in the Kalahari Desert. And it's incredible. Like first impressions? Insane. Landing on that airstrip and then driving towards the lodge. It was like a 40 minute drive or something. We already saw some animals. The landscape here, like the scenery. It is insane. It is unlike anywhere we've ever been. We're just so excited. And now we just made it to our villa, which they call Limotsi. And yeah, we just filmed a full tour actually for you guys. That will go live right after this video. So in a few days, we'll get to see the full tour. So we're not going to show you everything. Make sure to subscribe so you don't miss out. Hit the bell as well. And then you'll get a notification whenever the room tour goes live. Because it is, it is pretty, pretty beautiful. Now I think we're just going to settle in, unpack our bags. Then we're going to go and have something to eat. Unpack our bags. Laura already, Laura already served her little Amarula alcoholic drink. I did. It is 11 in the morning, but we're not judging. We're not judging. We don't judge on this channel. And like on game drives in the morning, he drank Amarula on your morning game drive. So this is not weird. Either way, we do not judge. Anyway, we are going to grab something to eat, some lunch. And then this afternoon, it's game drive time. Yeah, it's exciting. All right, let's eat. Let's feast. Okay, so we just made it to lunch. And wow, this looks amazing. This is not what you expect in a secluded place in the bush. It's incredible. This is also the main lodge, by the way. So you have the main pool right here. And then some loungers, a nice little lounge area. And then when it's cold outside, you have a restaurant inside as well. Yeah, we will show that later. There's actually, I think, a double pool. Because from here, I can see there's a pool below as well. Can you spot it? Yeah, we still need to like have a look around. But first, we're going to eat. I just like bumped it. Sorry. Enjoy. Enjoy, my love. All right, guys. So we are on our first game drive here in Sualu. And yeah, we'll obviously just show you everything we see. But basically, right now, we are searching for cheetahs. And our tracker and our guide just jumped out of the car to look for tracks. So we'll see if we found cheetahs. Because we have never seen a cheetah before. Really excited. All right, we're a few hours later. And we're still looking for the cheetahs. So far, we haven't found them. And the sun is going down. We'll find them. I trust our tracker. Yeah, we trust our guide and our tracker to find it. Let's go, baby. We'll keep you guys up to date. All right, so we just got back to the room. And unfortunately, didn't find our cheetahs anymore. So hopefully, we'll find them tomorrow. Now, it's already time for dinner. We just got freshened up a little bit. And now, we're going to go for dinner. And then after dinner, I think we'll go to bed early. Because tomorrow, we have a wake-up call at 5.30. And we're going to go on a game drive again. And we're going to find cheetahs. We're going to find cheetahs and meerkats. Cheetahs, we're coming for you. So exciting. But we'll see you later after dinner, I guess, right? No, we're just going to sleep after dinner. I'm not sure. We'll see. Good morning. So yesterday, we went straight to bed. And now, we're on a game drive again. We're looking for a meerkat, actually, this morning. So we drove somewhere, jumped out of the car, and walked towards an area. And now, we're waiting for them to come out. On the way here, by the way, we saw a brown hyena, which is like a super rare, super elusive animal. Most of the time, you only see them at night. We just had this great sighting. Our guide and our tracker said that in the 13 years that they worked here, they've never had such a good sighting. So happy. But now, let's wait for the meerkat. All right. So after that little meerkat experience, we just stopped here on the side of the road. A little drink with Amarula. Because we got to wake up a little more. And the views are incredible. It is insane. So basically, everything you see here behind us, that is all swallowed. So yeah, basically, as far as the eye can see. What's next, babe? After the coffee? Yes. Very excited. All right. So as you saw, we saw some cheetahs. It was an incredible sighting. We didn't go too close to them because they just want respect there. They were hunting. So they want to respect that and don't give away their location. They were also still pretty young. Like 18 months or something. Yeah. So they're not used to humans and cars. But yeah, that was amazing. There were four of them. Now, we just got dropped off here in the bush for a bush breakfast. So they basically have this whole setup. You have a bar here. And then you have some cooking, barbecue stuff right there. But yeah, we'll show you. We're going to have some brunch now. And then it is time to go back to the lodge. But first, let's have some brunch. All right. So we got back from our game drive, which was incredible. It was amazing. It was incredible. We saw brown hyena. We saw multiple meerkats and cheetahs. Four cheetahs. Cherry on the cake. Yeah. It was an incredible game drive. And then afterwards, we ended it with that like little bush breakfast brunch, which was incredible as well. And yeah, obviously, we saw tons of animals, other animals as well, like the usual, like giraffes and whatnot. Stain box, aliens. Yeah. Whatever. And yeah, now we're back in the lodge and we're just going to enjoy a little bit. It is such a hot day. Such a hot day. Like it is at least 30 degrees Celsius. Yeah, definitely. So we're going to enjoy a little bit and then we're going to go on another game drive. Let's go. Okay. So we're now at a restaurant called Klenjam. He's actually the first Michelin star shop of South Africa. And he has a restaurant here in the middle of the bush here at Zwolle. So we are going to try it out. And it's a full experience. So we're starting our dinner here outside. And then we're actually moving inside. So really exciting. Let's go. We were just walking through like this storage space here on the ground where we're going to eat. And he just like opened this. This is apparently our second course. Like how cool. Cheers big ears. Let's try. Cheers. Okay. So for every course, there is also a wine pairing and they actually always have two options. So one is a local option. So basically wine produced here around the Kalahari desert. And the other option is like South African reserve wine. So wines from Cape Town, Stellenbosch, Franschhoek, whatever. Laura and I were basically choosing both and we're just trying them all out. And thus far, it's just been such an amazing experience. Laura's getting a little bit annoyed with my humor tonight. I'm so annoyed with Nicolas. I can't go anywhere with him. She's just having a good time, but she doesn't want to say it to the camera. Great times. She is so embarrassed. She's been embarrassed all night. Stop. So yeah, basically this is the end of our dinner. We had such an amazing evening. Like the food, the staff, the wine, it was all incredible. The music. The music as well. Yeah, there is a playlist on Spotify. We will link it down below in the description, but it's a vibe. Yeah. Now we're going to sleep. See you guys tomorrow. Good morning, guys. It is another very early wake up call because we are getting ready to go on another game drive. And last night we were watching stars with our guide and we actually decided to go and try and find a black rhino today. So yeah, we're going to try and find a black rhino, which is super rare and also super dangerous. It is probably the most dangerous animal that you can find here. So a bit scared, but also very excited. We are on our way. It's a beautiful morning. It is not as cold. Also, I don't know if we showed you, but they actually took the roof off of the car. Normally there was a roof. It's better for fun. Also, we didn't say it yet, but here at Swalu, every guest gets their own vehicle. So you get your same guide, same tracker and your same vehicle the whole time. So you can choose what you want to see. Today we chose black rhino, hopefully. All right, so we've been driving for, I think, like three hours or something or three and a half hours looking for the black rhino. And we dropped off our tracker, who is also like have been tracking the tracks already of the rhino for like an hour or something. So we decided to stop for coffee, a little, taking a little break and then hopefully we'll find it. I feel so bad for our tracker because he's been walking around in the bush, like following the rhino's tracks for an hour. And we're just here drinking coffee. I know. Let's hope we find it. Guys, we just got back from our game drive. It is a little bit after noon now. And so we spent from 6.30 till noon trying to find the black rhino and we didn't find it. It was so sad, like we spent so many hours. But that's what you get here. We really get into searching for a specific animal and it's a lot of work. But we're going to go and look for it again this afternoon. Yeah, we are not in the zoo, so we can't expect to see the animals we want to see every single time. But yeah, I must say it hurts when you spend five hours tracking one animal and then our tracker actually, he was on foot for one hour and 30 minutes. He finally found it. The problem was the black rhino saw him first instead of him seeing the black rhino first. So they run. So it got scared and it started running away and we lost it. But anyway, this afternoon is another drive. Yeah, we're going to have lunch first because we are starving. Yeah, we're going to have lunch. But then it's time to find that black rhino. We're going to find you. We are going to find you. You have to. So yeah, we're going to have lunch and maybe like show you around a little bit because I feel there's some parts of the lodge that we haven't shown you yet. And then we're going to go on another drive and we're even going to do a night drive as well. Because some of the animals you find here are nocturnal creatures. So you'll see. Let's go have lunch. All right. So before you go on a game drive, we just quickly want to show you a little bit more of the main lodge. So this is where you enter. It's actually the place where you gather before you go on your game drive. In the morning, you actually have some light breakfast over here as well. There's even like a mini bar right there where you can just take out drinks whenever you like. And then over here as well, you have like a little bar where you can like just take some drinks whenever you like. Some drinks? I mean, look at this. Okay. A lot of drinks. Yeah. And then over here you have a lounge area where you can sit by the fireplace in the evening or where you can even have dinner inside when it's cold outside. You can see just very cozy and beautiful design. Yeah, absolutely. And here is like a little fireplace. Upstairs, we're not going to show you right now, but there's a library as well. You can get like books and everything if you want to chill by the pool and read a little here as well. There's like some dining area and lounge area and everything. And then let's go outside. We're in a little bit of a rush. Yeah, we're going on a game drive in a few minutes. We're doing this like very fast just because yeah. But we wanted to show you and it is our last day. Yeah. So this is like the outdoor lounge area. I can just chill here by the pool. This is also where they like kind of the reception area. Like if you arrive, there's not like a real reception. This is where you check in. Yeah. Where you check in, which is really nice. And obviously this is the pool. So you have a double pool, a big pool right here. And then a little pool right there as well. Yeah. The little pool is actually quite a bit warmer than the big one. That's what they say. I'm not sure. Like I tried it. It's not very true. They're both very cold. Yeah. Right there. There's the sunbeds. If you just want to chill by the pool. Babe, you said chill by the pool like five times. I'm sorry. We chill a lot by the pool. And then actually on the other side is where you can dine and have lunch. So let's just quickly show you. So this is actually where you have lunch or where you can dine. If the weather is good. Of course, there's a fireplace here in the middle as well to warm you up a little bit. And actually down here, we actually haven't used it. I'm not sure why. Yeah. This is just like a very cozy place as well with the fireplace to chill in the evening, have drinks. Chill by the pool, maybe. We chill a lot. This is not an official tour. This is still a vlog. Also, I wanted to show you guys. But right there, there's a water hole and there are a lot of animals. Yeah. That come there to drink, which is really nice. While you have a lunch or while you chill by the pool. Exactly. This was very rushed. I'm so sorry, guys. But yeah, as we said before, if you want to check out the room tour, like the villa tour, you can check that out. Yeah. Now we have to go on a game drive. Also, if you want to book Zualu, link in the description below. I'm sorry for the rush. Now we're going to go on a game drive. Black Rhino, baby. Okay. So as you saw, we did found the Black Rhino. So we're very excited that we got to see them. Ah, it was so special. I think in total, we probably tracked the Rhino for like seven or eight hours. For a very long time. Which is crazy. But then in the end, we were rewarded with three of them. And it was just an amazing sighting. Yeah. We have an incredible tracker, an incredible guide. Yeah. Kudos to them. Kudos. They are actually preparing a little dinner here in the bush tonight. It will be in the dark because obviously like seeing the Black Rhinos was more important than the dinner. But yeah, so we're going to have dinner here. We're sitting actually close to a water hole. So we might still see something. But yeah, it's getting pretty dark. Yeah. We had an amazing sunset. I don't know if you guys can still see it. I'm holding the camera in a really, really weird way. Because I'm also holding my phone for some extra light. Because it is very, very dark in here. Yeah. We're just going to enjoy a glass of wine. Enjoy some dinner. And we'll see you guys tomorrow. Because we are going to try and track the Black Mane Kalahari Lion. Wow. Good morning. It's already our last day here at Swalu. So we are doing our very last game drive this morning. And we already found some tracks of lions. So just exciting. They have a very special lion here. Like a Kalahari Black Mane Lion. And yeah, we're going to try and find it. We'll see. Okay, so after seeing those Black Mane Kalahari Lions. Which, by the way, are so freaking huge in real life. They're by far the biggest lions we've ever seen. A hundred percent. And so, so beautiful as well. They are beautiful. So after that, Laura had a very special little encounter with some giraffes. Yeah. So they literally, it felt like they came out to say goodbye to us. They were with so many. And then our guide Dylan said like, if you want, like you can get out of the car. And our tracker actually said that. And I literally, they told me to walk very, very slowly towards them. Not in a straight line. Yeah, not in a straight line. And they said, then you'll be fine. And they like slowly kept on coming closer and closer. And it was just the best moment of my life. It was magical. It was pure magic. I loved it so much. Like being so close. No, it's a completely different experience than being in the car, you know. So yeah, that was basically like the perfect ending to an amazing trip at Suwado. Absolutely. And then we took the Suwado plane back to Johannesburg and stopped at our friends. Because we hadn't seen them in such a long time. And then we made it to where we are right now. Which is Sasika Tented Camp. A crazy lodge here in the greater Kruger area. I was gonna say like, okay, a surprise for the next video. But anyway, Niklas already told you. It's an incredible place. So just make sure to subscribe. So you don't miss our time here at Sasika. Because it is insane. Yeah, it is mind-blowing. It's insane. Crazy. And we honestly already went on our first game drive. And what we've seen, you guys. Yeah, you should subscribe. You want to see this. Okay, this is Laura. And Niklas. See you next week. Thank you for watching.