“Attention to detail”
These are the 3 words which best describe our Pondoro experience last month (July 2010).

On behalf of “The Binnie Wedding Crew”, I would like to thank Robbie, Lize, Senty and all the wonderful staff who made our Pondoro experience a trip to remember. Special thanks must go out to Lize, who worked tirelessly to ensure the wedding ceremony and dinner was the perfect day and our stay was pure luxury. The quality of the cuisine and presentation deserves a Chef Hat award! We still talk about all that wonderful food!

We had heaps of fun and laughs out on Safari with Rul and Eric (Red Eye). They were a wealth of knowledge and I would like to thank them both for the effort and also introducing us to “Big Boy”. We may have missed the lion kill on the Wedding day, but we never missed out the abundance of wildlife we managed to experience. What better way to finish a safari than with a hot towel and a glass of sherry.

For those seeking a mixture of luxury, fine cuisine, relaxation and wildlife… Pondoro is the place!

Regards,
Graeme

The Binnie Wedding Crew – Perth, Australia
(Anne-Marie, Simon, Peta, Alan, Anita and Graeme)

We had the most incredible and amazing time at Pondoro Game Lodge. This place is a true gem and we loved every minute of our stay. All the staff at Pondoro are wonderful and really make you feel at home; they looked after us so well and they really know how to spoil the guests. We stayed in a standard chalet which was very comfortable and felt really homely (loved the hot water bottle at night!). We saw one of the luxury chalets and it was absolutely stunning. The food was really incredible and the dinners in particular were exquisite. I loved the fact that for every meal we had different place mats; that’s the kind of attention to detail that you will get in Pondoro.
We did our game drives with Shaun and Erick, and both of them have such a wealth of experience, they were fantastic in getting us up close and personal with the African wildlife – what an absolutely amazing feeling to be so close to lions, elephants, giraffes, zebras, buffalos, rhinos, hippos etc. There are no words which give these encounters justice – you have to go there and experience it !! It’s truly awesome.
We would like to thank everyone at Pondoro for looking after us so well and giving us and our 14-year old nephew the time of our lives and the best memories (thankfully we have about 700 photos as memories). We’d loved to make it back one day……..

Linda & Aldo Sesta

Hi Robbie,

We are back since now 2 days at home but we have in mind some many wonderful moments of our 4 days stay in Pondoro that it is as we were still there… Needless to say that the 1.200 photos taken by Pascal help a lot to still be with all of you there …

We just wanted to say that we really found in Pondoro a little piece of heaven on earth. The lodge is fabulous and the game drives wonderful. We’ve seen the big 5 and much more with “children eyes”. We definitly spent here one of our best holidays ever.

We are currently selecting the best shots and will be able soon to post some of them on the blog…

We will definitly be back in South Africa and most probably we will spend some time in Pondoro again…

Laure & Pascal

Hi,

We  just wanted to say thank you so much for the most incredible experience ever! Not sure if you remember us but we were honeymooners staying it the tree suite! Our room was like nothing we ever stayed in our lives! Just incredible! The food and staff especially lisa and Rosanne were outstanding and made us feel so at home! The food was incredible never tasted anything like it or saw anything like it even the way it was presented! My favourite was the parcel with vegetables inside it! Thank you so much! We loved the romantic dinner in the wine cellar that just put the icing on the cake for us! Superb!! Thank you so much!

Our ranger on safari was Sean and tracker was Eric and they have such a wealth of experience it was fantastic! I even found myself looking for the animals tracks on the sand as well! We learned so much! We saw lions a few times in two days one time just basking in the sand next to the watering hole! There was 19 lions including big boy! Just an incredible site and Sean got us so close my husband Graham thought they were going to jump in on top of us!!   so funny! Our pictures are just fantastic! We came across the Rhino’s on a few occasions and even followed one on foot with Sean and Eric into the bush!  Nobody believed us at home that we did that until they saw the pictures!!  Now everyone wants to go on safari! We would make good sales reps for Pondoro! We can’t say enough about the place! Just heaven on earth!!

Thanks a million we had the time of our lives and we will be back in the not so distant future again!

Janice and Graham Crowley x

During my trip in April Shaun asked me to check on the genetics of white lions (I am a geneticist). While making my Holiday cards from pictures from my favorite vacation of all time I remembered the request.
Here is a great website about white lions: http://www.animalpicturesarchive.com/view.php?tid=3&did=27297
and Shaun was correct they are not albinos but have a leucistic trait from a mutation (known as chinchilla) that inhibits the deposition of pigment along the hair shaft, restricting it to the tips. It is thought this trait has been lost in the wild but you never know!!

Happy Holidays and thank you again for the most enjoyable trip EVER.