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From: "Jaffer Kassam
Jafferkassam@gmail.com [desi_pardesi]"
<
desi_pardesi@yahoogroups.com>
Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 09:55:37 +0100
Subject: {Desi_Pardesi} THANDA ISLAND IN TANZANIA
To:
desi_pardesi@yahoogroups.com
Thanda Island: Tanzania's $10,000-A-Night Private Retreat
[image:
http://blogs-images.forbes.com/annabel/files/2016/08/thanda-island-1200x800.jpg]
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[image:
http://specials-images.forbesimg.com/imageserve/57b231d031358e2f31317ba0/400x400.jpg?fit=scale&background=000000]
<
http://www.forbes.com/pictures/mgf45kjjh/thanda-island/>
Gallery <
http://www.forbes.com/pictures/mgf45kjjh/thanda-island/>
A Private Beach Playground on Thanda Island in Tanzania
<
http://www.forbes.com/pictures/mgf45kjjh/thanda-island/>
*Launch Gallery <
http://www.forbes.com/pictures/mgf45kjjh/thanda-island/>*
*9 images <
http://www.forbes.com/pictures/mgf45kjjh/thanda-island/>*
<
http://www.forbes.com/pictures/mgf45kjjh/thanda-island/>
It was Ernest Hemingway who lured Dan Olofsson to Africa.
"I read all his books," says the Swedish technology entrepreneur who
heads the consultancy Sigma, and they lodged in his imagination.
So when he and his wife, Christin, decided in the early 2000s to build a
winter home someplace warmer than their native Scandinavia, they
considered the Caribbean but eventually set their sights farther south.
"There's fantastic wildlife and nature in South Africa,"
the 65-year-old Olofsson says. "You don't have that in a lot of places."
Their plans grew to include a guest lodge at what is now the well-regarded
Thanda Safari Private Game Reserve, which opened in 2004.
("Thanda" is Zulu for "love.") Soon after, the Olofssons set out to acquire
a
private-island counterpart to their safari lodge and settled on one in the
Shungi Mbili Island Marine Reserve in southern Tanzania. After years of
negotiation and sustainability-minded construction it was rechristened Thanda
Island <
http://www.thandaisland.com/>
and welcomed its first paying guests in August.
The property, which has five bedrooms and rents in its entirety for $10,000
a
night (for up to ten people), is roughly 20 acres ringed by coral reefs in
protected
waters that teem with sea life, including whale sharks, dolphins and five
species
of turtles. The closest inhabited land is Mafia Island, home to more
spectacular
marine life, trustworthy dive centers and traditional villages. Thanda
Island's
hospitality director, Antigone Meda, likens it to Zanzibar 30 years ago—and
while Zanzibar now has 200-room hotels, Mafia has about 200 hotel rooms.
(Thanda guests who don't helicopter in from Dar es Salaam fly to Mafia,
where Thanda staff greet them and ferry them over in a sleek
mahogany boat that would do James Bond proud.)
The Olofssons envisioned the island as a private paradise where they could
escape with their three children and eight grandchildren. But the Tanzanian
government wouldn't let them buy it unless it would contribute to tourism in
the country and protect marine wildlife. The couple complied but remained
committed to building a private family home. And here they were inspired by
another 20th-century American icon.
"We were at the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port around the Fourth of
July three or four years ago," Olofsson recalls. "Looking around, we liked
the
New England style. Our South African property is more Zulu style. Here we
wanted something different, and we decided on New England." The resulting
house on Thanda, with its white wainscoting, peaked rooflines and pastel
palette,
mixes the American and the Scandinavian, with a few African flourishes like
bird's-nest lamps in the living room and colorful fabric on the chairs in
the library.
The design is intentionally hard to classify. Olofsson invested millions–
"Less than 10," he clarifies, though he is unsure of the exact amount–to
build
something that exists in very few places in the world. That's in addition to
the island itself, with its perfect white sand and clear turquoise
waters just feet away from the house.
The Olofssons were very hands-on with the villa and two freestanding
beach bandas (open-air bungalows, which allow the island to accommodate
groups of up to 28 people), with Christin designing the interiors and Dan,
a civil engineer by training, collaborating with the architects. He was
also the
visionary behind the villa's most striking feature, a glass rim-flow
swimming
pool that gleams with blue mosaic tiles and rises up from the deck to form
a
luminous cube. "This pool was quite exciting to design," he says. "I felt
like I was
just out of university, even though that was 40 years ago."
[image: The house and pool on Thanda Island]
*The house and pool on Thanda Island*
The food is far better than might be expected in such a remote location.
Much of it is caught nearby. Staff will harvest some of the abundant
oysters on demand and serve them with champagne. While importing luxury
foods and wine comes with a carbon footprint, the island was designed to be
self-sufficient. It's constructed with sustainable materials, and there's a
field of solar panels and a desalinization plant. The house and all its
infrastructure were also built in such a way that would allow them to be
taken apart and leave no trace on the island.
That eco-consciousness is important to Olofsson, who has invested heavily
in conservation in the marine reserve. Thanda is working with the Tanzania
Marine Parks department and a leading NGO, Sea Sense, on research projects
involving sea turtles, whale sharks and coral reefs. It's a continuation of
the commitment Olofsson, the biggest Swedish philanthropist in Africa (and
plenty generous at home), made when he established the Thanda Foundation in
South Africa in 2005. Among other achievements, its Star for Life arm has
put 110,000 children through HIV-prevention education programs. "We are at
a point in our lives where we're able to give back to society, and I think
when you're there, you have to do it," he says.
While Thanda has made a point of hiring most of its staff from Mafia Island
and is working to improve education there, marine conservation is the main
focus. Not that guests would suspect that much of the wildlife is on the
endangered species list. There are frequent turtle and dolphin sightings on
the boat ride from Mafia, and it's not uncommon for guests to find
themselves swimming among half a dozen whale sharks, the biggest fish in
the sea.
That, it turns out, is Thanda Island's greatest luxury: the access to such
an ecosystem—and a solicitous staff to make it easier to commune with it.
(They'll even drag a copper bathtub onto the beach for a sunset soak.)
"Being a big family on an island to yourself," Olofsson says, "there is a
special feeling to that."
And if it's a rainy day, there's still plenty to enjoy—Thanda Island is
home to what was the largest Hemingway collection in Sweden, now sitting on
shelves spanning 20 feet in a clean, well-lighted place.
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