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In the spirit of pioneering women like Isak Dinesen and Osa Johnson before her, CATHERINE RAPHAELY is committed to sharing her passion for Africa with the world. Catherine is a force of nature dedicated to developing award-winning safari experiences in the Makgadikgadi Salt Pans of Botswana that draw a who’s who of the world’s most adventurous travelers. And, much like Isak and Osa, Catherine fell into her very unique life’s work due to romance and adventure.

In 1992, Catherine was scouting land for a safari camp with Ralph Bousfield and his father, the legendary explorer Jack Bousfield when their small plane suddenly crashed to the ground. Catherine and Ralph survived, but sadly, Jack did not. So, to honor him, the two decided to establish a safari camp in Jack’s name on land that Jack discovered back in 1962. Since its inception, Uncharted Africa has become one of the best and most unique safari experiences in the world thanks in large part to Catherine’s grit and fearless determination.

Catherine shopping in Timbuktu with Robert Norton

As an entrepreneur, Catherine continues to create once in a lifetime experiences for her guests and remains dedicated to working with the area’s indigenous people to insure that the desert oasis that is home base for her safari camps remain sustainable and environmentally sound. As an international tastemaker, Catherine’s style and design projects have been featured in books and magazines across the globe, but I thought you might like to get to know the woman behind the award-winning safari camps and get the back story on how she designed the camps in the vast nothingness that is the Kalahari Desert. And because Catherine has such a fun and fearless approach to life, I believe you will find her inspiring as well. Enjoy!

Mali: Warlord Safari--Just Married

Catherine, you own a very successful luxury safari company in Botswana. It’s not a typical career choice for a woman, so tell us who or what most influenced your direction in life?
I am someone who just fell into the safari business because of a man. That’s the fact. Although both my parents run their own businesses, I am a creative person first and foremost and, therefore didn’t expect to run my own. My father instilled a deep love of nature in me as a child as our family holidays were spent hiking in the mountains and exploring the beaches and outer reaches of Southern Africa. My grandmother influenced my love of beauty and style. I then married adventure and ended up being married to a business after all, but in the middle of the bush!

Last year Uncharted Africa was voted #1 by the readers of UK Conde Nast Traveller which must have been such an honor for you. Can you describe another treasured experience since opening the camps almost a decade ago?
Winning the Conde Nast Traveller award was unexpected and meaningful. It is incredibly touching that such an obscure camp in such a remote and far-flung location could evoke such a passionate response from so many readers and it truly was the highlight of my career. Knowing that one has played some part in the setting up of a camp that provides an experience to guest that they will sincerely never ever forget and, in fact treasure, is something I regard as a huge privilege!

In a rather shallow contrast however, I also loved being featured in Hello (anonymously) whilst standing behind Elizabeth Hurley wearing over £100,000 of antique diamonds and a John Galliano dress that looked like a gardenia. Both were borrowed Cinderella-style for the night. And, in a similar vein, once being mugged by paparazzi in London who thought (wrongly) that Hugh Grant and I were an item! I’m not sure whether these urban misadventures would have befallen me had circumstances not conspired that I made friends with certain, highly specialized, and thankfully, happy visitors to Jack’s Camp. And, it was also the extreme contrast between my small town life and the ridiculous aspect of that era and those circumstances that made them more amusing.

On a more momentous note, seeing the zebra and wildebeest migration that visits our area recover due to our conservation presence and the justification of successful tourism and associated revenue has been deeply thrilling and rewarding as well.

Catherine walking on the Salt Pan

Describe a few of the unique experiences offered by Uncharted Africa that sets it apart from other safari companies?

• Ongoing habituation programmes permit guest to observe and interact at close quarters with rare desert species such as enchanting meerkats and the shy and elusive brown hyena.
• Respectful and dignified cultural interaction with the Bushmen people of Botswana offers insight into an ancient culture that is in harmony with the natural environment.
• Game drives across the endless grassland savannah of the Makgadikgadi present a wall-to-wall panoramic view of Southern Africa’s last great zebra and wildebeest migration and the predators that follow in their wake.
• The use of environmentally correct quad bikes, sleeping under the stars and two day expeditions to the enigmatic and compelling Kubu Island reveal the otherworldly lunar beauty of the vast Makgadikgadi Salt Pans.
• Horseback safaris led by experts with years of experience allow guest to approach the migration at exceptionally close quarters.
• Visits to Chapman’s Baobab, the largest tree in Africa and camp site of early explorers such as Livingstone and Selous evoke adventures and history of Africa in a very different time.
• Properly authentic mobile safari expeditions hold true to African safari tradition providing real adventure in unreal style.

What three things should people consider when planning a safari experience?
Ask yourself, do you want a “feel rich” luxury bush hotel? Or do you want to be enriched by a proper, authentic safari adventure and an experience that will bring you close to nature and enhance your understanding and experience thereof. Both have their value.

Jack's Camp Mess Tent

Many Zavvi Rodaine readers are design junkies and I know that you designed your safari camps from concept to completion, so tell us what that process was like for you.
I’m not a professional interior designer, so I couldn’t do a floor plan. But I ended up designing and styling all the lodges. That was the best and most favorite part of my job, but sadly, it couldn’t be the most important because operational requirements provided a constant and noisy distraction. I was culturally and professionally isolated as I lived and worked in a very small town on the border of Zimbabwe and Botswana for 17 years. I therefore responded directly to the history and culture of the environments in which I worked as well as their natural surroundings. I always automatically think of the story of the place. That gives it a context which leads to your imagination taking flight followed by an idea just popping into your head.

At Jack’s Camp, one of the last proper tent camps in Africa, the context was my former partner Ralph’s family’s past in colonial East Africa. Jack Bousfield, Ralph’s father, had been a free spirit, a great white hunter in Kenya and Tanzania, and we were lucky enough to have the result of many years of his collections languishing in dusty storerooms at the family homestead in Francistown. I just started by art directing what was in the stores and putting everything together. I was inspired by the color of the acacia leaves in the spring and Bushmen leather hunting aprons and capes and their beaded artifacts, so I chose shades of rich burnt umber and sienna for the printed lining and a particular shade of dusty grey green for the canvas exterior.

So, both nature and culture affected my choices and the style of the camp. I knew that it was very romantic and I knew that it was very evocative and I knew it would be commercial. And it was actually a team effort; Ralph has taste and he’s got style. And, you know perhaps it wouldn’t look the way it does if it didn’t have that museum. Tellingly, due to the fact that many of the items in it are of national and international cultural significance, our “Mess Tent” at Jack’s Camp has since been declared a proper national museum!

Years later, is there anything you would change about the design?
Not really as I feel the camp was, and is authentic and, as such, must remain as it is and hopefully, forever will be. However, there are technical innovations with regard to the tents that we are able to integrate on an ongoing basis and one would and should always seek to make the operation more environmentally friendly wherever possible too.

How do you define your design style?
I suppose I’m most known for being authentic and for the romantic post-colonial campaign safari style of Jack’s and San Camp and the funky afro-chic mud huts of Planet Baobab. The elements of my style–if you can call it that–are Dutch and British colonial and campaign furniture, African art and artifacts, anything related to natural history–skulls, taxidermy, ivory, tortoise shell, leather, textiles of all sorts–bead work, embroidery, batik and more. The detail is authentic and my handwriting might be classic however, I hope, it will not seem dated because it’s been given a kick in the pants which reflects my subversive side. I do also have a secret life that has less to do with safaris…and by that I’m referring to my love of contemporary art and modernist style. Truly good design is actually timeless and everything I love can usually be mixed which is what I like to do.

Catherine in the Pool Tent

Who are your design inspirations?
I will forever be imprinted with my grandmother’s elegant restraint and love of dirty celadon green and flowers of any kind. I love the individual and sophisticated style of  Mrs. Delaney, Madeleine Castaing, Mirella Agnelli, Gloria Vanderbilt, Nancy Lancaster and Lady Amabel Lindsay. I also admire the designs of Naoto Fukasawa, Carlo Columbo for Poliform, Guglielmo Ulrich for Poltrona Frau, Thomas Sandell for Marzotti Edizioni, the Campana brothers, Jean-Marie Massaud, Patricia Urquiola, and the work of many mid-century modernists like Arne Jacobsen, Paul Kjaerholm, Alvar Aalto, Charles and Ray Eames, Hans Wegner and Florence Knoll. Of course, from a bit earlier Charlotte Perriand, Jean Prouve, Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe. Their work still looks so fresh and in many ways, there are few properly new ideas anymore. In magazines, I am always completely transported by the styling done by Faye Toogood, Jessica Haynes and Maud Hewlings for World of Interiors and I find that Alistair McAlpine’s writing in that same magazine and certain things that he has collected over the years such as Fante Flags from Ghana and other textiles are inspiring too.

What are your must-have beauty essentials?
First and foremost–a cheesy smile and a positive attitude. Secondly, the obvious 101s–a sunhat and sunblock, but only if the sun is out and less obviously, Rooibos tea. I used to drink gallons of this and apparently it is full of anti-oxidants. I love my Lancome Definicils mascara for everyday because the effect is natural not cloggy. Otherwise I don’t wear daytime makeup and I am useless at applying makeup when I go out at night, so I use very little. Thankfully, I don’t think it suits me. I use hot water and a facecloth to wash my face and don’t believe in cleansers or soap as I think they strip one’s skin. I have recently discovered a fantastic argan oil hair treatment called Dikson Arga-Beta which makes your hair uber-shiny. My homeopath also makes a bespoke pill and some lotions especially for me.

What is your idea of perfect happiness?
A swim with a man that you love, if possible, while laughing your head off.

Name one unforgettable place that you’ve traveled too.
The Festival au Desert in the undulating white sand dunes outside Timbuktu in Mali. It’s an annual music festival with both traditional and contemporary music from the region. Everything is tented and temporary except for the sound stage and the majority of the patrons are Tuaregs on camels. I gather it has moved closer to town now due to the threat of terrorist attacks which is a great shame.

Name one place you’d like to see before you die.
The South Pole.

Catherine with her Meerkat

Music is such a defining element in people’s lives, is there a song that takes you some place special whenever you hear it?
This is really too hard, Yolanda, as I love so many types of music and I have so many memories attached to various songs. I love “Be My Baby” by Tarika a famous girl band from Madagascar. I would love to visit Madagascar and whenever I hear it, I imagine being there! It’s also very feminine and romantic and I relate to all that. “Kiss You On The Cheek” by Desmond and the Tutus has personal significance as this dancing tune seems to have cropped up repeatedly at many of my most happy times with some of my most favorite and much-loved people over the past three years. It has an up and super-cheery energy, is very South African and has a totally distinctive Cape beat as well.

One word…
That’s private. (And I don’t mind your saying I said that!)

What advice do you have for young women?
Enjoy being a lady, but also know how to let go and have fun. Be kind, make things balance and leave the world a better place. Make enough of your own money that you are able to make your decisions for the right reasons, but, very importantly, be strong enough to be able to be with a man, woman or, on your own.

Asked to write your memoirs, what would the title be?
Unfortunately, someone has already written a book of their memoirs with my perfect title. It’s called “I Married Adventure” by Osa Johnson and was published in 1940!

Interviewed October 2011 by Yolanda, editor of Zavvi Rodaine
Photos used with kind permission of Dook Clunies-Ross, Antony Hoffman, and Ray du Toit

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