Lalibela Kichaka Lodge

Kichaka Lodge features ten charming and spacious suites, with a two-level bedroom and living area. Guests can enjoy relaxing on their extra length king-size beds with cotton sheets and plush pillows, surrounded by elegant furnishings and with air conditioning to help maintain a constant comfortable temperature. Each suite has a private bathroom which includes an enormous bathtub and rain shower.

The suites also include private decks with a heated plunge pool and outdoor showers. The 3 Water Facing suites have been perfectly positioned to maximize the view over the waterhole, offering incredible wildlife viewing from the comfort of your own private space, and the 7 Bush Facing suites are immersed in the natural surroundings, allowing guests to reconnect with the green and vibrant plant life.

Guests at Lalibela Kichaka Lodge can look forward to three delicious meals each day, prepared by expert chefs using fresh ingredients. Meals are plated and can be served either on the viewing deck or out under the dazzling stars in the boma where guests can enjoy mouthwatering South African delicacies beside a roaring fire.

Drinks are included, and guests will be able to order a range of fine local wines or extravagant cocktails from the bar.

Venture out on an exciting game drive and view the incredible wildlife of the Lalibela Game Reserve from the comfort of an open-topped safari vehicle. Lalibela is home to elephants, rhinos, buffalo, leopards and a high concentration of lions, as well as other predators including cheetahs, hyenas and jackals.

Guests can enjoy two game drives each day, taking place in the mornings and evenings when wildlife is most active. Your professional ranger and guide will be able to take you to the best spots for viewing game and help you track the animals which interest you most. Learn fascinating facts about the land and its inhabitants while watching herds of elephants playing together, or big cats stalking their prey through the tall grasses.

Game drives usually take between three and four hours, with a coffee break in the morning and a sundowner stop at sunset. Optional late-night game drives can be arranged with the lodge at an additional cost.

Enjoy a gentle stroll through the wilderness at your own pace where every detail, track, plant and insect can be admired. Look out for the smaller species that often go unnoticed during drives, and listen to the gentle songs of birds without the distracting noise of an engine.

Journey across the sweeping savannah plains on foot and experience the thrill of tracking the Big 5 while enjoying a leisurely exploration of the incredible landscape. Guests will be accompanied by a professional guide who will keep you safe while you learn to spot and follow tracks and clues that lead to exciting wildlife viewing.

Kichaka Lodge’s peaceful and luxurious spa offers guests the chance to relax and unwind with a range of wellness treatments while enjoying the amazing panoramic views overlooking the waterhole and nearby wildlife. With a tranquil ambience, the spa is built from natural stone and thatch – capturing the essence of an African safari experience. The spa consists of a general treatment room, couples rooms, sauna and steam room.

Kichaka Lodge’s qualified therapists offer a holistic and healing approach, and will happily customise treatments to suit your preferences. All treatments come at an additional cost and can be booked with the spa therapist.

Lalibela works to support the local community and ensure that local people are able to see the positive impacts of responsible tourism. They support children in the local community by sponsoring two football/soccer teams and two netball teams and funding tournaments throughout the year. Equipment and uniforms are provided for the children and they are able to continue to develop their sports skills and enjoy interacting with their fellow team members with the facilities they need.

Lalibela also provides ‘nutritious breakfasts to all the children in the Seven Fountains community’ which amounts to around 130 children. During the school holidays, Lalibela offers both healthy breakfasts and lunches to the children and offers a range of fun activities to keep them entertained in the absence of term time.

Lalibela runs a number of initiatives for adults in order to broaden their range of skills and offer new opportunities. One of these projects is a sewing group which enables pensioners within the community to knit and sew a range of useful items for local children including warm clothes for the winter and blankets. Children are also taught these essential skills and are able to knit and crochet squares in order to create blankets for the elderly and vulnerable.

Lalibela supports the local recreation centre by holding formal lunches at Christmas and Easter for the Old Age Pensioners in the community. Each guest receives a gift to take home, and is treated to light-hearted entertainment such as singing and dancing.

Lalibela also supports other celebrations within the community every year including Mandela Day and Women’s Day.

Every week, Lalibela hands out 30 – 40 Hope Jars to households within the Seven Fountains Community. The jars are filled with rice, beans and lentils which can be used to create healthy and nutritious meals and ensure that nobody in the community is made to go hungry.

The Ikhala Veterinary Clinic gifts kennels to dog owners who are providing a safe and nurturing home for their pets. The kennels are constructed from recycled pallets and decking plants from one of Lalibela’s old lodges after it was refurbished.

The veterinary clinic treats dogs for various medical conditions and treatments including neutering, cleaning and patching up wounds, and deworming. They also supply medication for ticks and fleas and provide dog food three times each week. The Ikhala Veterinary Clinic visits the Seven Fountains Community each Wednesday.

Lalibela is part of Pack For a Purpose, an initiative which encourages guests to travel light and utilise their spare suitcase space in order to bring essential donations that will help benefit the local community. Lalibela collects toiletries and sanitary towels for children and adolescents, school stationery, second-hand shoes and uniforms, toys (that are not battery operated), knitting wool and marshmallow Easter eggs.

These items are transported directly to the community projects that they support from the lodge’s reception.

Lalibela is working towards a plastic-free future and has been making an effort to stamp out single-use plastics within the community. Members from local villages, especially children, have been helping in this effort by collecting single-use plastics to create EcoBricks. These EcoBricks are made from plastic bottles, filled with recycled plastic which form reusable building blocks. The community can use EcoBricks to construct tables, benches and storerooms, providing useful items whilst reducing the amount of plastic waste.

Throughout Lalibela Game Reserve, recycling bins have been placed beside staff housing, workshops and buildings in order to collect glass, tins, plastic, paper and cardboard which can all be recycled rather than taken to the landfill. Once full, the recycling bins are emptied and the contents are taken to a nearby recycling plant.

Additionally, vegetable peels and food waste is collected by a local farmer who uses these scraps as pig food and for making biogas.

Lalibela is working to remove alien vegetation within the reserve which consumes more water than the flora indigenous to South Africa.

‘An ongoing conservation project on Lalibela is the removal of alien wattle trees (as of November 2021, we estimate that we have completed about 75% of the task).’

The invasive wattle trees are removed and then burnt so that their ash can be used to fertilise the soil and introduce minerals and nutrients that promote growth. As a result, Lalibela has been able to ‘recover 4000 hectares of land that is completely wattle free’. Vast sections of savanna grassland have grown back where wattle forests had previously taken over.

‘The Savanna Grassland biome has the highest wildlife carrying capacity so this means that we are able to sustain large herds of plains game like zebra, impala, wildebeest, red hartebeest, blesbuck and eland. This, in turn, allows us to sustain a remarkable density of free-roaming lions.’