Reflections on the ACIS South African Safari
Former French language educator Nicolette Miller has been an ACIS Group Leader for over 20 years. In Summer 2025, she traveled on an ACIS Global Conference to South Africa for a once-in-a-lifetime safari experience.
It is 5:30 am and pitch dark in the South African bush. A loud knocking is at the door to my lodge: “Are you awake for safari?” I quickly dress and scramble to the main lodge, grab a hot chocolate and a rusk. The pungent smell of the winter vegetation in the bush smells like potatoes and fills my senses. We climb into the safari jeep for another morning of sheer adventure! What animals will we see today? Will I be able to take photographs that capture the amazement and awe that I feel upon encountering the incredible wildlife in Kruger National Park?
The sun rises over the bush, and the curtain goes up on this magic show. Animals appear out of nowhere and slide into view. Then disappear quickly back into their habitat. Magic is everywhere but you must look carefully to see it. Your senses are heightened, trying not to miss anything. Can you spot an animal before the tracker and field guide?
As with any journey, it is also the people who accompany you that make it special and unique. Our driver and guide is named Excellent – and he is. He notices animals and birds from afar and can read their behavior like a book. He requires us to sing as we leave the lodge and the harmonies of “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” echo out into the bush. Excellent knows how to find joy in life, and we experience it with him on our safari. His father was the field guide for Nelson Mandela, and we profit from his inheritance of knowledge. I think of the quote from Thoreau:” I went out into the woods to find myself.”
On our safari we see hours-old baby elephants, lilac-breasted birds, lions mating, a leopard sunbathing, a leopard’s kill of impala hanging in a tree, a rare pangolin in the woods, hippos laughing in a crocodile pool, zebras crossing the road, lions blocking the road and Pumba the warthog tripping over the brush!
While in South Africa, we also visited The Black Mambas’ all-women anti-poaching operation center, walked on a swinging bridge across 50-meter-deep Graskop Gorge, feasted our eyes on Blyde River Canyon (3rd largest canyon in the world), and experienced the Hoedspruit Endangered Species Centre where cheetahs are bred and released into the wild. Fresh native fruits and vegetables are at every meal, and we eat sumptuously. Our final night we dine in a boma while watching traditional Zulu dances with firesticks.
Returning home with a sense of wonder and a piece of South Africa in our hearts, as Lawrence Anthony expresses in his memoir, The Elephant Whisperer, “The wilderness is not somewhere out there. It is in your soul.”
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