Zulu Nyana Safari Game Lodge

Here is our room at the game lodge.

It seems a nice place though we haven't seem much of it yet.

Here is what Steph wrote to her son David early this morning:

It's 5 am and I finally gave up tossing and turning. I slept too much on the plane. We arrived here last night after waiting for our ride for over an hour. Our flight was early so apparently it wasn't noted even though Dwight had alerted them. From what I could see in the dark from the freeway, Johannesburg is sprawling with lots of American fast food and strip malls. There is apparently a horrendous traffic problem. We had to stop at the original hotel where we were booked to pay our bill before we checked in here. We were told that the first hotel - Country Manor - was closed for "security reasons" which the clerk wasn't at liberty to discuss. But she did tell us that some group had taken over the whole property and didn't want any strangers there  for fear of kidnapping! We are flying to Durban this morning and then driving three hours to Nyala. We were able to get into the other place for the 2nd three nights. I am looking forward to the excursion to St. Lucia and seeing the crocodiles. I am also excited about seeing the Cheetah at Nyala.

We have been checking the Tripadvisor reviews, something I'm sure I did last year when we won this at a silent auction, but now the reviews seem quite different. Everyone says they are here because they won it in a charity auction and someone investigated it and said most of their business comes from charities where the charity keeps half and the safari camp keeps half. Then the safari camp charges for everything other than the basics and provides rooms so poor that people feel the need to upgrade the room. We had already upgraded figuring the donated rooms wouldn't be the best. Reviews also point out that this is an extremely small private reserve with 3 elephants, one cheetah and a few other animals. People complained that they were taken to the same places each day to see the same animals. Another way the safari camp increases revenues is by offering excursions outside this preserve. A couple of reviewers recommended moving to a nearby much larger preserve called Phinda after a couple of days here. So we have arranged to move after 3 days to Phinda Rock Lodge for the rest of our safari part of this trip. The complaints about the food here (and the praise for the food at Phinda) was also a factor.