It’s no secret that the Kruger National Park (KNP) is one of South Africa’s most-loved destinations.
So it comes as no surprise that Canadian actor Eugene Levy attributes the beautiful safari destination as one of the places that made him fall in love with South Africa.
The ‘American Pie’ franchise, ‘Madea’s Witness Protection’ and the successful ‘Schitt’s Creek’ actor recently began filming a new travel docu-series which brought him all the way to Mzansi.
The series, called ‘The Reluctant Traveller’ places Levy in some of the world’s most beautiful and intriguing destinations including Finland, Italy, Japan, Costa Rica, the Maldives, Portugal and South Africa.
The actor and reluctant traveller told Condé Nast Traveller that although he has been around the world and seen “every animal in the jungles and the plains of South Africa”, his visit to KNP this time round was different.
“So when Kruger National Park came up as a destination for the series I'm hosting and executive-producing, I honestly didn't see a reason for going. You know, I'd already seen it all. But my frame of mind went from ‘I don't necessarily want to be here' to ‘I don't want to leave' in just one week. It was kind of magical,” said Levy.
The actor also revealed that he had the opportunity to sit in his room at Kruger Shalati and gaze out the floor-to-ceiling windows at the marshy rivulets of the Sabie River below, watching an elephant and a hippo grazing in the distance.
“It was the most serene, comforting vignette, one that made me want to go down and spend an afternoon on a sandbar in a comfy little beach chair. If, of course, it weren’t home to the Big Five.
“One morning, I saw the largest crocodile I've ever seen slithering through the shallow water under the bridge. But the more I saw, the more I felt connected to this corner of the world and to the animals.
“There was something about the beauty of the landscape and the danger within it – that combo that made me think, okay, you know what, I get it now,” said Levy.
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