They call it a lodge and it isn't...or is it?
We hear lodge and think of Africa , in a kind of deluxe shack where you can drink gin and tonics after an exhausting day looking for the “Big 5” or the “Big Specials”. But the lodge is not all that glitters. And other places that we don't know are lodges. Let's undo the mess, let's enlighten the masses. What is a lodge? And, almost more importantly: what is it not?
This anglicism, which we embrace without problem because we like to appear worldly in front of our friends, means “small house or cabin in the vicinity of a park, in a natural environment or adjacent to a larger house” . Originally, a lodge is a place of rest, a refuge, for hunters, fishermen, athletes. Ergo, applied to the world of travel, it must be a small place, permanently built (with walls), local materials, minimal environmental impact, committed to the local culture and that offers the guest everything he needs (and more) for his rest while doing one of these practices. This is what the Lodge Theory says. What we have in our sick traveler mind when we read it is different. Or more reductionist.
Though the term became popular in Kenya , applied to the hotels of its national parks in this country, following the definition we can find it in the snow, in the middle of the jungle or near a river. Kenya did very well and made us dream of places to return to after a day of safari to have a gin and tonic and a bath, both very post-colonial customs. a lodge reproduces (in that country and in others in black Africa) what were resting places for hunters , but, once hunting is prohibited, they allow the image hunters, that is, us, to rest. Good examples of these places in Kenya that fire our imagination are the Tawi Lodge in the Amboseli National Park and the Solio Lodge , in Laikipia.
The Tawi lodge fires our imagination
But a lodge is also the place that has just opened in the Sierra Nevada that is called, redundantly but effectively, the lodge . There are also lodges for those who practice fly or salmon fishing , to give examples of sport fishing. Two examples are the Painter’s Lodge (Vancouver, Canada) or the dry islands , in Panama or the Upstream , in Argentina. Or for those who travel looking for birds (bird watching) it is this one from Kerala (india), called Eldho's Birding Lodge . Other times, they fulfill several functions, all related to activities in Nature, such as Borneo Rainforest Lodge or the Nyungwe Forest Lodge , in Rwanda.
Once we know what a lodge is, we deduce what it is not. A lodge is not:
- A well-equipped tent. Even if you are in Kenya. They are called tents or camps. It is important that a lodge has walls. Places like Joy's Camp or Lewa Safari Camp may look like lodges, but they are camps (deluxe, yes) made up of tents (deluxe, that too).
- A lost hotel in the middle of nowhere. The Botanique de Brasil is in the middle of nature and that does not make it a lodge. There is no rest from any sporting activity or hunting or fishing. You rest from life, in general.
- Neither is a small hotel in Tarifa or Comporta. Those are little hotels in Tarifa or Comporta, even if they have walls, even if they are small. Let's be serious.
This topic arouses controversy: Was this place, Stapleford Park, a lodge? It meets the requirements but it is not what we have in our imagination. And this Australian oasis, Southern Ocean Lodge, which is called a lodge but does not seem to be the refuge of any sportsman or hunter? Prejudice dictates one thing and theory another. Who wins?
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Nyungwe Forest Lodge, Rwanda