Wild Heart, Open Flame brings two forms of mastery together in the wild heart of Botswana’s Okavango Delta. Francis Mallmann has devoted his life to understanding fire: flame, smoke, iron, wood, salt, char, patience and time. Deborah Calmeyer has spent hers understanding Africa: its silences, its rhythms, its wild places and the precise decisions that turn access into meaning. Conceived and designed by ROAR AFRICA, this rare five-night journey at Xigera Safari Lodge invites guests to experience Francis cooking with fire in Africa, where the ancient instinct to gather first began. Surrounded by water, wildlife and the vast intelligence of the Delta, days unfold with game drives, mokoro excursions, long lunches and evenings around the flame, where smoke, salt, heat and time transform every meal.
The journey you experienced before to Africa was only one chapter. Each time you return, the continent reveals something new: the Serengeti during the migration, Cape Town in autumn, the power of Victoria Falls. Places you thought you knew shift with season and perspective. Your first journey was an introduction; the next is a reacquaintance with a continent that doesn’t reveal itself all at once.
We have become remarkably good at measuring ourselves. Our sleep. Our steps. Our heart rate. Our readiness. Our stress. There is an app, a ring or a screen to tell us almost everything about how we are doing. And yet, in our relentless pursuit of optimization, perhaps we have forgotten how to nurture our wellbeing in a much more natural and simpler way.
The most profound way to feel better may be not to measure more, but to step away. Get offline. Go outside and allow the natural world to do what it has always done: return us to ourselves.
Join us on The Greatest Safari on Earth, 2027. This exquisite journey explores four of Africa’s iconic wildlife destinations - Zimbabwe, Botswana, Kenya and Rwanda - across 12 days in unbridled luxury aboard the A319 Emirates Executive Private Jet. Led by our hand-picked guides, there is no trip in the world like this one!
