If you haven’t entered any dates, the rate shown is provided directly by the hotel and represents the cheapest double room (including tax) available in the next 60 days.
Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (NAD19,411.21), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.
Guests arrive at OurHabitas Namibia in a cloud of burning myrrh (part of the locally inspired welcoming ritual) and things only get more mind-expanding from then on. The switched-on hoteliers at Our Habitas have taken the safari's ‘game drive, eat, rest, repeat’ rhythm and set it to a different beat. You’ll still be awed by giraffes, elephants, rhino – all the biggies – and more still, but then you’ll listen to bushmen from tribes across Namibia swap stories over braais and cocktails, be swaddled in the Himba people’s red-ochre body paint in the spa, maybe even pick up some traditional dance moves, and stargaze up at an unimpeded canopy. A stay that goes wild in offering culture for those who refuse to be tame.
10am. Earliest check-in, 2pm. Both can be flexible subject to availability.
Prices
Double rooms from £941.62 (NAD22,517), including tax at 16 per cent.
More details
Rates include breakfast, lunch and dinner, all drinks (excluding premium wines and champagne, two safari game drives a day and a daily-changing programme of activities).
Also
The hotel’s welcome ritual involves burning myrrh resin and giving you a string bracelet with Our Habitas’ logo. And for more Namibian craftsmanship to take home, stop by the art market at reception, where you can pick up unique pieces, such as jewellery made using ostrich eggshell, grewia flava and pumpkin seeds. On check-out day, the bushmen usually give a talk on what the products and artworks are made of and discuss their cultural significance.
At the hotel
Deck with pouffes and a fire pit, garden, library, lounge, board games, a small handicrafts boutique, free WiFi. In rooms: bathrobes, a day-bed, local handicrafts, air-conditioning.
Our favourite rooms
Each room is the same – facing sunset, glass walls all round (all the better for admiring nature’s glory, but can be screened off with canvas coverings), local handicrafts, throw pillows, rugs and a day-bed, plus plumbing – and in the middle of this 51-hectare wilderness there are no unsightly pylons or prefab flats popping up to spoil the view.
Poolside
The freeform, natural-looking rock-edged pool, with a handful of loungers to one side, is set into the main lodge’s wooden deck atop a vast bluff – so you can even safari as you swim (although the animals don’t tend to wander up to these parts too often). However, little furry dassies (a small gopher-type creature curiously most closely related to the elephant) frolic unabashedly here.
Spa
Namibian ancestral practices put cultural cachet into spa spoiling here. Treatments – being caressed with a calabash, coated in the Himba people’s famed red-ochre cream and myrrh oil, or massaged with quartz crystals or hot stones – use essential oils infused with the likes of locally grown baobab, Kalahari melon seed, ximenia, marula, manketti, myrrh and more, some grown in the hotel’s own garden.
Packing tips
Bring the requisite safari kit: neutrally hued clothes, binoculars, camera etc. And leave your inhibitions at home, you’ll enjoy your time here all the more if you do.
Also
There are cinema screenings (sometimes outdoor depending on weather) held each week.
Children
Small critters make easier prey, so Our Habitas Namibia is for over-12s only.
Sustainability efforts
The founder of hip hotel group Our Habitas created this stay aiming to inspire a sense of community, and it seems he’s followed through: guests are gently encouraged to dive into activities such as bush yoga and meditation or dance, and guides hail from various parts of the country, giving a bigger picture to game drives and dropping cultural knowledge alongside animal facts. This used to be a hunting lodge, so it’s heartwarming to see it take on a ‘look, but don’t shoot’ approach; more animals are being added too, to further conservation efforts. And, Our Habitas looks after humans: its Rise initiative helps provide jobs and hospitality training for the local community.
No beating around the bush – just sitting peacefully in it admiring the panorama. Sometimes meals are set up on the yoga deck, which has yet another amazing aspect, and we like the pouffes by the pool for casual hangs.
Dress Code
Colour sings loudly in Namibian culture, so swap out your safari neutrals for sundowners.
Hotel restaurant
Dinners in the tented open-air dining space are fertile ground for story-swapping, whether it’s about bagging the Big Five sightings or the local staff telling Namibian lore or accounts from their lives. Chef Pietrus dips into typical Namibian dining when it comes to dishes, throwing in a little Euro influence, so you might have butterbean hummus with avocado and zucchini, beetroot tartare, bratwurst in a pretzel roll with sauerkraut and pickles, crystallised ginger and pumpkin-seed ice-cream. The hotel also holds ‘bush braais’, a barbecue-style feast served out yonder, usually accompanied by live music and dance performances.
Hotel bar
The bar sort of floats from the dining space to the lounge to your deck or poolside lounger. Excellent South African wines have travelled northeast to the drinks list, and for sundowners there are sweet local gins such as honeybush-infused Za.ir or Stillhouse with a citrusy flavour, plus signature cocktails. To accompany ‘bush braais’, a pop-up bar is set up in the scrubland. And, there’s a range of healing teas too (say one made using the root of the ‘devil’s claw’ plant, which actually does God’s work in helping ease arthritis, indigestion and more), plus tastings on request.
Last orders
Timings are kept loose, but breakfasts generally start at 7am till around 9.30am, lunches from 12 noon, and dinners from 7pm till late.
Our Habitas Namibia has a handful of hideaways scattered over its 51,000-hectare reserve in the Namibian bush, which humans share with much wilder creatures.
Planes
The closest airport is Windhoek Hosea Kutako International, about a 45-minute drive away. The hotel can arrange transfers on request.
Automobiles
Refreshingly, for a safari getaway, there’s no arduous journeying or light aircraft boarding required to reach the reserve, set close to Namibia’s capital. So it’s entirely possible to self-drive via the B6 and M51 roads out of Windhoek. However, it’s probably safer to put yourself in the capable hands of the hotel staff and book a transfer, which will free up your hands for pointing out the window and going ‘oooh’ at the country’s breathtaking landscape.
Worth getting out of bed for
Obviously, a portion of your day is dedicated to game drives – morning and afternoon outings are included. Early starts kick off with rusks and strong coffee and then it’s out into the acacia-studded bushland and scrubby hills of the Kalahari, to search for white rhino, giraffes, elephants, zebras, wildebeest, kudus and hippos, and – if you’re lucky – shy leopards and cheetahs. Guides – who’ll lead you on walks and show you how to track animals – have been plucked from diverse locations across the country (say residents of Swakopmund and Walvis Bay cities, the Himba from the north, the San bushmen), so you’ll be schooled in Namibian culture too. And the wildness extends into other pastimes here – the programme changes frequently, but you might have the chance to pick up some local dance moves as traditional music plays, partake in cookery classes, get an eye for medicinal plants and knowhow in using them, and sun salute the savanna in alfresco yoga sessions (or guided meditation). A lack of light (or pretty much any other) pollution allows for sparkling stargazing sessions, and the spa has unique passed-down-through-generations treatments to try.
Every hotel featured is visited personally by members of our team, given the Smith seal of approval, and then anonymously reviewed. As soon as our reviewers have returned from this cool-cat safari camp just outside Windhoek and unpacked their binoculars and downloaded their attempts at National Geographic snaps, a full account of their beast-mode break will be with you. In the meantime, to whet your wanderlust, here's a quick peek inside Our Habitas Namibia…
Do you have the ungainly gait of a galloping giraffe? Are you as shy and retiring as a cheetah? Feeling as sluggish as an elephant? Well OurHabitas Namibia – a safari experience for urbane wild things – will coolly nudge you out of your comfort zone. With a handful of suites across a 51,000-hectare reserve (set just an easy one-hour drive from Windhoek), guests get an intimate, personal experience from the myrrh-burning welcome ceremony to the bushmen’s handicrafts demo on check-out day (when you can buy some to take home if you wish). Aside from game drives to see fantastic beasts (elephants, giraffe, rhinos, zebras, wildebeest), what happens in between might include being caressed by a calabash in the spa, learning how to recognise and use medicinal plants, giving local drumming and dance a go, guided meditation overlooking the savanna, and hearing stories from bushmen of seven different tribes swap stories as a braai simmers away to a Namibian soundtrack in the bush. A chance to go wild in all the ways.
