Last summer, Philip and I spent five days at the Londolozi Game Reserve in South Africa - a very special place focused on nature preservation, education - and preserving the ancient art of tracking.
We went together with a small group of friends, locked away our phones, aligned our sleep schedule with the circadian rhythm, and immersed ourselves in nature - learning the basics of tracking from two master trackers and how this skill (or call it an Art form) can be a guiding life philosophy, following one’s own track toward purpose, and making a difference.
It changed our personal lives, how we view the entrepreneurial journey, and our approach to Earth.
One year prior to our visit at Londolozi, I went to Africa for the first time on a traditional safari trip. I’m not a spiritual person, but being there gave me an indescribable sense of calm, grounding and connection. Something special had happened out there. The only other time I’d felt like that was scuba diving when it was just me, my breathing, and the water.
When I came back to Spain, a friend randomly sent me a podcast where Boyd Varty, a life coach and second-generation co-steward of the Londolozi Game Reserve, was talking about his life, career, tracking, and the “wild self.” Boyd is one of the best storytellers out there and everything he was saying in that podcast just clicked with me. I fell into a rabbit hole where I became obsessed with Boyd, Londolozi, and their philosophy. I bought Boyd’s book and told my coach in San Francisco about him and the influence his words had on me. My coach gifted me a bright orange hoodie with a quote from the book - “I don’t know where I am going. But I know how to get there.” (more on that later!)
Fate works in strange and bizarre ways. The same day my coach got me the hoodie, I met a climate founder, Adrian, in downtown San Francisco. We talked about business, and he mentioned a place in South Africa that was working on a large-scale nature protection and restoration project, and perhaps we’d like to be involved.
He said it was called Londolozi.
One week later, Philip, Adrian and I had a call with Boyd’s father and his brother-in-law, Rich. We talked about the project they were working on; conservation efforts to restore, protect and preserve the wild; how Londolozi started off as a bankrupt cattle farm and is now home to a thriving wilderness. We started helping them work on a carbon credit scheme and, after a few months of weekly conversations, Rich eventually invited us to the Track Your Life retreat in the coming summer.
Londolozi is a Zulu word for “protector of all living things.” And that’s really what the Reserve stands for. It’s one of the few places on earth where you can really be one with nature, and give back to the earth. The Varty family’s story is also incredibly inspiring — they’ve been in that place for a hundred years, and during that time, they went through a massive transition: from hunting, to preservation work and bringing people there to experience nature. They also built a relationship with surrounding landowners, tribes, and people who’ve been living there for centuries.
The Varty family’s vision is simple, but noble: take care of the land and people, take care of the region, expand those practices, and enroll others to take care of the land and the river to ensure nature and humans are being treated with respect and dignity. When Nelson Mandela visited Londolozi shortly after his release from prison, he said: “During my long walk to freedom, I had the rare privilege to visit Londolozi. There I saw people of all races living in harmony amidst the beauty that Mother Nature offers. Londolozi represents a model of the dream I cherish for the future of nature preservation in our country.”
All that said: When Rich invited Philip and I to attend the retreat, we really had no idea what to expect. We were going in relatively blind; no expectations, no goals, and we had no idea as to the scale, professionalism, and care that the Vartys and the whole village that is part of Londolozi put into the place. We arrived in the afternoon, and took a drive out that evening into the bush — a silent drive. A great starting point. No talking or listening to human voices. Bronwyn Varty — Boyd’s sister, the steward of Londolozi (literally the person who runs the place) — encouraged us to take in the nature around us as unfiltered as we could during the drive. By that, she meant not exercising judgment towards our surroundings, like pointing towards a lion and thinking it was majestic, or comparing animals to each other. She wanted us to take things as they were and as they appeared, which was a special way to set the tone for the rest of the trip.
Our subsequent days at Londolozi were very structured and completely unplugged. No phones, laptops. We started every day right before the crack of dawn, around 4:30 am, and wrapped up at dusk. Meditate in the dark. Listen to animal calls. Head out to track animals on foot with two master trackers Renias and Alex. Coaching sessions in the afternoon with Boyd and Bronwyn. Another drive or tracking session after that.
Tracking, as a concept, is pretty self-explanatory. There is a track that leads you to somewhere - like a specific animal. If you can read the signs and interpret the complex ecosystem around it you might eventually find that animal. A tracker is someone who’s skilled in identifying and following the signs and tracks of wildlife. Like Renias, who's been doing this since his early childhood, or Alex who learned from Renias 25 years ago. We only had a few days with them, but learned how to read and follow a track — we practiced, developed the embodied sense of “being on track”, led our small group along the track, and supported each other as in turns different people from our group took the lead. It was a great experience of what it means to find a track, follow it, be “on track” or “lose the track”.
The intention during the retreat isn’t that you become a tracker in four or five days. The intention is to use the skills and tools tracking provides you to map out your own life. We know this sounds corny and cliche, but it really works. Tracking with the Varty family at Londolozi made Philip and I think about “gut feelings” — this idea that you know what it feels like when you’re building the right thing or doing the right thing.
I’ll give you an example of what we witnessed tracking with Renias. Renias is a master of his craft. He knows when a track is older than this morning, why birds are flying in a certain direction, and what that means. There’s a lot of analytical thinking and logic at work governing his decisions — but there’s also more to it. Because Renias is a master, an expert so to speak, he just follows his gut, makes decisions automatically, and then explains them later.
It’s fascinating when that happens. When you become a master at what you do, you’re not really thinking about it logically anymore. It's just part of your being. A gut feeling comprises a million data points that we’ve collected over the years— the experiences, the learnings, the understandings, the mistakes. This is what drives us to make decisions subconsciously — that gut feeling.
It’s also interesting to think about what happens when you lose track, and Philip and I have been thinking about this a lot ever since we returned from Londolozi. How do you step back, and reassess things - find the “last known track”? How do you stay on track? And how do you come to terms with your inner core, your true, wild self? I think it would really help — not just us, but the world generally — if more people were in contact with themselves and what they truly wanted. The “wild self” is a really beautiful metaphor. It helps you tune into what drives you, your energies, motivations, and why you're here on this planet.
There’s a lesson for founders in this, derived from the quote that’s written on my bright orange hoodie: I don't know where I'm going, but I know how to get there. It's an incredible, powerful, simple sentence. You have a vision and you know, in essence, what you want to achieve, but the path ahead is often unclear. So what do you do? You take it step by step. You take the first cue, the first tip, the first hint. You go for it, just start. Then you find the next step. And the next. And the next.
That’s tracking.
This is also what Philip and I try to do at Earth. We keep moving. When we feel like we’re lost, we take a step back, assess our surroundings, find the next track, and follow that.
Coming back from Londolozi felt like a jolt; I came crashing back to reality. It was a horrible adjustment at first. After spending four days lion tracking in a place with total serenity, it was really hard trying to integrate back into the fast-paced ‘real’ world and city life after being out in nature, attuned to the natural rhythms. This clash of worlds was quite irritating at first - and for some of us it also meant we spent the week fighting with our wives and girlfriends a lot more.
But as we slowly adjusted, our experience at Londolozi had a bearing on our work at Earth. It connected Philip and I to our authenticity, to our wild selves. For Philip especially, it increased the conviction for his project that he’s leading with his partner Lena of finding a piece of land to live on, to co-steward it with others toward building a place that is a blueprint of what he calls “a future worth living for”. They are on the track to create one of these places where you know magic happens, and where you can bring people together, not dissimilar to Philip’s recent experience on Necker Island.
It also motivated us to get better at storytelling. Boyd Varty has truly mastered the craft of telling a story. Storytelling is a huge part of Londolozi’s culture - to share with one another, inspire, and playfully process experiences. There were times at Londolozi when we were sitting around a fire, and Boyd would be telling us anecdotes he’d told other guests hundreds of times before. But his energy, enthusiasm, and passion made it sound like this was the first time he was telling this story, and that he was telling it just for us. He has a way of drawing you in and making you feel invested in what he’s saying. It’s remarkable, and we want to be able to communicate about Earth in that way. And, of course, good storytelling is a powerful and required tool for the founders we work with (which is why we invited Boyd to speak at our Earth gathering last year!).
Overall, there’s power in a place, and Londolozi was the purest example of that we’ve experienced. So much so, it’s immensely hard to convey my time there in words. It actually took Philip and I two or three tries to sit down and write this piece. The experience felt so rich and meaningful, that we didn’t know how to distill what we were feeling into a post that captured the weight of it. Which is why, when I mention Londolozi to people and they tell me, “I’ve been on a safari too!” — I get really fucking pissed.
Londolozi is so much more than that, and if you read different blogs and stories of people who’ve attended the retreat, you’ll start to understand why. My wife and I are actually went to Londolozi a couple of weeks ago, right after my 50th birthday, because the only way to describe how life-changing it is, is to visit in person.
Maex, thanks for sharing. I will reread many times later in life.
Love this part: "It’s fascinating when that happens. When you become a master at what you do, you’re not really thinking about it logically anymore. It's just part of your being. A gut feeling comprises a million data points that we’ve collected over the years— the experiences, the learnings, the understandings, the mistakes. This is what drives us to make decisions subconsciously — that gut feeling."