City break to safari: actor Luke Evans on the perfect southern African itinerary

There are worse places to spend Christmas than Cape Town – which is exactly what Welsh actor Luke Evans did this year.

“It was a once in a lifetime experience,” he tells me over the phone – from Lisbon. Evans is always on the move – and as he talks me through the details of his trip, it sounds like it, too.

For Evans has become one of the first people in the world to experience the new offering from luxe brand Atzaró. Famous for its collection of gorgeous whitewashed hotels and villas in Ibiza (which Evans “has been going to for years and years”), Atzaró has now launched two new properties: one in Cape Town, and one in the middle of the Botswanan wilderness.

Evans got to experience both over the course of five days: first flying into Cape Town, then heading north via helicopter into the Okavango Delta. And both delivered on views.

“We stayed in this beautiful hotel right on the foot of Table Mountain,” Evans says. “It really is the foot of the mountain and it's just – the view from one side is down to the ocean, and behind is this incredible giant rock.”

His recommendations for things to do? Climb the mountain, of course, though ideally with Atzaró, who organised a lunch at the top.

“What freaked me out was actually got to the top and it's relatively flat, like a table. I was not expecting that for some reason… we had some lunch up there and a glass of wine and came down by cable car because it got very windy.”

Next up, exploring the markets and the Muslim area of Cape Town, whose Malay population in the city dates back hundreds of years and has left its mark in the architecture and the spice-heavy food. “It’s really colourful. Every house is covered in incredible paint and artwork. There are galleries and craft places – and great food. We ate some amazing food.”

Plus, a trip to Boulders Beach in Cape Town, which he describes as “like paradise.”

“White sands, huge massive monolithic boulders just sitting on the beach. There were families and then there’d be the odd penguin that just swam. Just like, wildlife and humans co-existing nicely with each other, all enjoying the beach.”

So Cape Town ticked off – then came a whistle stop tour safari, courtesy of a plane ride and then a helicopter. Atzaró has also recently launched a nine-day itinerary which will let travellers experience the same thing, at a slower pace.

And it’s needed, simply because of the abundance of wildlife there is to see. “I've been on one before and it was Namibia and it really wonderful,” he says. “But I remember meeting people there and they said, ‘You have to try Botswana. The animals there, the concentration of wildlife is really extraordinary,’ and they were right.”

The hotel is so remote it’s only accessible by a three-hour drive, or a helicopter.

“We landed in a field, surrounded by warthogs and giraffes and got picked up and then taken to this camp,” Evans says. “I mean it's weird when they say the word camp, because it's I guess it is a camp but it doesn't feel like a camp, because it's so beautifully done.”

Comprised of a luxury safari lodge and surrounded by private rooms – all on stilts, so the animals can pass underneath – the hotel sits directly on the migration route, in an area that’s bursting with life. Sitting on the deck at sundown, with “music and a bar”, Evans describes looking out over the delta and seeing springbock and deer making an appearance in the dusk.

“You could hear animals walking through it: buffalo, hippos, zebra, everything. On the final night, a leopard roared next to our house. Just hearing it, not seeing, it was quite a sensory experience,” he says.

“It's just a sound you've never heard before and at that close up – not via David Attenborough's wildlife program - it's another thing altogether because it actually rattles the interior of your stomach. You can hear the breathing, and you know it's just doing its thing, completely unaware that there's two human beings sleeping in a luxury house above it.”

In addition to spotting leopards at night, there was also game drives. “One day we saw 40 elephants, and one day we were just wandering through the legs of giraffes. They were just all around this lake and we drove through it and they just stood there. It was like a forest of legs.”

After all that, does Evans have any standout experiences? Climbing Table Mountain for one. The food for another, and going on safari for a third.

“We loved the guides that we had. They were the nicest and most well educated, informative people with literally x-ray vision. They saw things we couldn't see from half a mile away and then they drove drive up and sure enough, they would be a leopard sitting in a tree. How the hell did you see that?”

Would he go back?

“I'd like to go back and do a lot more. There's so much more to do in Cape Town… seeing Nelson Mandela Boulevard and all these things,” he says. “You see statues of Mandela and the history of the place, I feel like it really is a city that's evolving. It would be a very nice place to live actually.”

And if you can live at Atzaró, then all the better.

Atzaró Cape Town: rates start from £331 for a bedroom in low season up to £547 for a suite in high season. Book here: atzarocapetown.com

Atzaró Okavango Camp: rates start from £565 per person and range up to £1221 per person per night during the peak season. Private villa rates, with a capacity of 4, start at £2,827 and go up to £6,105 in the peak season. Book here: https://atzaro-okavango.com/