Marataba Mountain Lodge

Marataba is different from other safari lodges. First there are only two lodges in the whole park which means no crowds. Game drives where incredible with Big 5 viewings, but specially one of the 5 (won't Say for conservation issues) is everywhere. The mounitain and the view just makes this place magic. Staff Will do everything in their power to make You feel like Home.

Marataba Mountain is a place where you can just relax, enjoy the nature, fantastic meals and incredible game drives. Also the SPA treatments were really good. The boat tour with Miss Mara was a great surpire and it is impressive to see all the hippos in the river! Thanks to all the Marataba Team making this possible, Manuel and Karin

We loved this lodge, in just the most beautiful of settings. The guiding from James and Kaitlin was first rate and the hospitality back at the lodge excellent. The variety of excursions and experiences here is fantastic and we enjoyed water/land/walking safaris, trips up the mountains and many different dining locations. We stayed for a week and saw all the big 5 and so many other stunning animals. Thank you to everyone at the lodge for a memorable week.

We stayed here for 4 nights in July from 10th to 14th July 2023. The welcoming from the staff was fantastic when we first arrived. We were taken to Safari lodge first as our driver dropped us off and took all of us who were checked in towards the mountain lodge. This lodge has 5 rooms and can hold a maximum of 10 guests. During our stay we had one other family of 4 with us from Germany with their two teenage kids for the same duration as us which made this intimate and special as these guys it was their first safari also and we had a great time on safari with them 🙂. Firstly the Marataba reserve is stunning with the waterberg mountains and the changing landscape to open plains to thick bush and lovely hills etc all make great game viewing excellent 👌🏼. In total we had 8 game drives, as it’s winter the temperature at night got cold to around 0°C to 4°C and you can feel it when there is wind but warms up lovely during the day to around 20°C plus whilst we were here. So layers are recommended including a woolly hat and gloves are a must for the morning drives. Our game drives in the morning started at 06:30 with a wake up call around 6am however, we recommend getting up 15 mins before wake up time to make sure your fully ready for the day. From the morning game drive we got to the lodge roughly around 10am to 11am each morning. The afternoon game drives were our favourite in the winter setting off at 15:30 sometimes at 15:00 depending on the guide and the groups mood and where you go in the reserve to track animals. From this drive we’d get back to the lodge around 7pm with a night drive using the red light and we got lucky on these night drives to see Lesser bushbaby, porcupine, Civet, African wild cat, nightjar, bat eared fox and some other critters and bumping into some of the bigger animals in the dark like a male bull elephant in Must was scary so we had to take a detour as these bulls can be aggressive during must time. Firstly we’d live to thank all the staff and relief staff at the lodge of our stay and these are; Jennifer - Lodge manager Kabelo & Gosego (Gee) - Butlers Labious - Chef Kedibone- Sculler & makes game drive morning and afternoon tea and snacks Tabo - night porter Philictus- Housekeeper Mbongeni AKA Bongz - Safari Guide Claudia - relief lodge manager All of these staff are truly amazing and made our stay beyond words that we cant describe so if you all read this thank you so much for making our stay and making us feel like part of the family. When we all said bye to you that was truly very hard and bought some tears to our eyes as our stay was the best ever! We’ve stayed at a lot of places around the world and this places truly is above and beyond anything else. Me and my wife are partly pescatarian but more mainly vegetarian and food was very well catered for and we may have put on 7 pounds during our stay as the food was the best we have eaten anywhere we have stayed! No joke the food is to die for so Thank you Labi

At the top of a valley with amazing views into the Waterberg Mountains this 5 room kid free lodge offers a pared back luxury safari experience with contemporary scandi style lodges and communal areas. The service is exemplary and the game drives excellent and set against the magnificent mountain backdrop. Our guide Tim was friendly, knowledgeable and committed to showing us the bast of Marataba with no set return time so drives lasting up to 5 hours were regular. With just two sister lodges we often went hours without seeing another vehicle and only had one (or occasionally two for a minute or two) for company when lions and cheetahs were on the move. A short river boat safari with resident hippos, bird life and waterside mammals was also great, which we were lucky enough to do once in the morning and once at sunset. Brunch and dinner were excellent with quality drinks and snacks available all day. A small pool and spa room complete the scene. A very bespoke secluded experience. As a minor point the steps from the lounge/dining area to the 5 rooms are steep and uneven so this is not a place for those with mobility or obesity issues. We had the best time. Thanks to you all at Marataba Mountain Lodge

Mountain Lodge lived up to all the excellent reviews. The setting was stunning. Service from the team attentive and friendly. The chef produced high quality food every day. Our guide Tim went out of his way to ensure we had a once in a lifetime experience including seeing the hippos which was a must for me. We saw all the Big 5 except the elusive leopard plus lots more. We never anticipated seeing so many elephants, rhino, giraffe every day along with smaller mammals and the most colourful birds. The steps up to the lodges are certainly a challenge especially in the dark but the lodges location and views are breathtaking. We had some very close encounters with the wildlife but felt totally safe in Tim’s hands. We enjoyed the exclusive more remote location and feel privileged to have experienced this safari adventure in our special birthday year. Thank you to everyone who looked after us during our stay

Marataba Mountain Lodge is set in one of the most beautiful reserves I have ever seen. The backdrop makes for the perfect photo, almost to good to be true....no photoshop needed here. The staff were friendly and always willing to go the extra mile to make us comfortable, to the extend of arranging takeaway coffees to enjoy on our morning drive. The walk up to rooms is not for the faint hearted but the views are worth it. If you have a problem walking up stairs, I would suggest requesting a room closer to the main lodge. We did not see the big 5 however, the amazing Rhino sightings and the incredible views made up for it. The food was good, no complains and with no kids around this is a perfect spot for couples.

We just loved our time here and didn’t want to leave. The Mountain lodge feels incredibly remote and the views are simply out of this world. It felt very special to be tucked far up the valley surrounded by mountains and bush and with only 5 bedrooms rooms it feels very exclusive. The game viewing was exceptional (thank you to our brilliant guide Marco) and we had some really exciting encounters with elephant, rhino, lions and even saw a cheetah kill. Although the weather was mixed the season was great for seeing lots of babies and young animals including a tiny white rhino. The lodge is managed by the very capable and lovely Jennifer and the food and service were just great, chef makes a great omelette in particular. Sadly our treehouse experience was rained off but it gives us an excuse to go back!

To start with, I must say that this rating is unfair to Marataba stuff. Absolutely everyone: Jennifer (first of all), Anne-Lise and the rest of the stuff lodge I don’t know names of were doing absolutely everything not only to fulfill each and every of our wishes, but even the slightest of hints. We asked whether they happen to have memory foam pillows and the next day 2 brand new ones were bought in a town nearby and delivered. We didn’t like drinking water the lodge provides in its own bottles, we asked for bottled one and - instead of telling us the “go no-plastic” stuff we would have heard everywhere else – bottled water was bought in plentitude. When I complained about a slightly sore throat, our guide Marco – who definitely didn’t have an easy time with us, but was always very professional and trying to do his utmost best for us (based on his working environment and his training) – next morning gave me his own neck scarf. It is impossible not to notice and not to appreciate things like this. But I am giving a rating to overall experience and even the most prominent personnel can’t change the place they work at or environment it is in. As it turned, name “Mountain Lodge” isn’t just a romantic one given because the lodge has great views of magnificent mountain range surrounding the reserve (it does) – it actually is located on a mountain itself and there is quite a long passage between main building where you eat and where the car parking is and 4 out of 5 rooms the lodge has, passage of very steep and tricky stone stairs (especially tricky in the dark after one had dinner and drank some wine). In the beginning we got room 3, so right in the middle - not even the furthest one – and we had to go about 100 meters to reach it, both climbing up and going down, so no matter which direction you moved there was always a climbing part. I consider myself to be reasonably fit and I definitely didn’t enjoy it from the first time. I saw some other guests going to their rooms and they were clearly not enjoying it either. But enjoying or not enjoying something is one thing, but my wife has tachycardia. She leads absolutely normal life with this thing kicking in when she has to do some climbing among few other things. She was suffocating after she went to the room for the first time. To our extreme luck next day room 1 – the closest to main building - got free and – many thanks to Jennifer again – she relocated us there, so for the rest of our time at the lodge it was only 25 meters way with climbing only one way. I think it would be relevant, if the clients were informed about the layout of the lodge at the moment of making a booking and asked whether they might have some issues against climbing the steps to their rooms. Well, there are plenty of other medical issues apart of mentioned tachycardia that my wife has that can be triggered by them – in our case then we would have just booked in Safari Lodge in the same Marataba. I have difficulties to imagine