Our Man in Cape Town is a visionary. And his sights are ones of incredibly detailed clarity.
When Ozzy looks at the future of travel, this is what he sees:
The CEO of a major organization, with headquarters in the bustling center of New York, enjoying an incredibly splendid South African wine that is remarkably similar to another vintage he once enjoyed, during a memorable celebration in the Napa Valley. The man is seated on a non-descript pillow on a rocky outcropping next to the sea while the African sun sets spectacularly into two oceans next to Cape Town.
From a distance the man looks like any resident of the Mother City, winding down from the day with close friends, surrounded by nature.
Just like that, the story that the CEO takes home from Cape Town is both a genuine insight into life in the city and an extraordinarily personalized experienced that is utterly unique.
It can take up to six months to perfect an individual itinerary to Cape Town. The sunset is only one of the many complex instruments in the orchestra that Ozzy conducts. As with every other part of a Rothschild Safaris journey, each travel plan is like DNA; designed around the personality of the travelers.
The forfeit? It might be missing out on the rote Cape Town ‘must-see/ must-do’ that millions before and after them have paraded through like sheep. Because when Rothschild Safaris puts a true connoisseur in charge, you may find yourself eating incredible food on a street corner rather than at the latest, greatest fine dining experience or—if political debate is your cryptonite—spending two hours debating the state of the world with international award-winning cartoonist Zapiro.
Why is he so driven to introduce strangers, in the most perfect, intelligent and crazily inspired ways to the city that stole his heart?
The tale might begin, as all our personal stories really do, with where he started his life. Growing up in a Turkish town very close to the Iranian border it might be a flight of fancy to infer his natural diplomacy from this Persian influence, but the inbred Turkish hospitality is undeniably part and parcel of his make-up.
After school, Ozzy went on to study Economics but soon found himself lured away by the secrets of the oceans. Becoming a professional scuba diving instructor in Turkey while he was still at University his travels through the world began under water. It took him to Asia and eight years later he was living on an island in Malaysia when he was offered a job in South Africa.
He accepted because the thought of a Safari intrigued him. Johannesburg was an understandable shock to the system, so Ozzy jumped on a Baz bus and travelled through Swaziland to Mozambique where he dived with whale sharks before he started to make his way south, down the coast. By the time he arrived into the Transkei he was beginning to fall in love with Africa. And when he set eyes on Cape Town it was game over for Ozzy.
He wasn’t looking to lose his heart to a city.
The plan was to keep moving and diving with the seasons… but he would not be the first person to fall hard for the Mother City.
So, Ozzy went to University again. This time it was in the form of a travel agency who catered to big groups of people. It is an important part of the travel world but over time Ozzy realized that it did not particularly gel with his personality. There were parts of the experience that he increasingly had trouble reconciling himself with, as his own vision of a different style of travel developed. Ozzy was dreaming of a world where the same package would not be on offer to everyone. Where food was always savored and everything was a matter of finesse.
Within five years Ozzy was ready to set out on his own.
He could see this gap in Cape Town’s travel scene.
People were traveling from all over the world. They were spending lots of money on crazy itineraries while staying at the five-star hotels, hitting all the tired highlights over and over again
When he started talking about his ideas people in the industry said ‘Dude. This is what the backpackers do. Your ideas are crazy.’
But he was not for turning and his niche idea took off. As it turns out the CEO really wanted to sit on a rock with a great wine and watch the sunset.
And at this point in his journey, Rothschild Safaris discovered him and partnered with him to design bespoke tours in Cape Town.
Our Travel Designers work with Ozzy to craft bespoke day trips for our travelers in a manner that can almost be considered scientific. Every single detail for every single event is carefully considered and personally matched.
That bottle of South African wine the CEO was drinking?
There was one offhand comment from the guest four months before the travelers landed in Cape Town.
It was noted.
The name of the winery in Napa and the specific wine was passed on to an exclusive sommelier.
The vintage was carefully matched to a South African winery and a fine decision was finally made.
And then there is the coffee. While he slowly brews you a cup from selected beans he will go back centuries and tell you how our affair with coffee started in the 9th century when a goat herder in Ethiopia wanted to share in the obvious side-effects his goats were enjoying from eating the plant’s beans.
We can only imagine this man was a visionary and everyone said; ‘Dude, this is what the goats do!’
But he was not for turning and soon his experiments were popular through the Arab world before spreading to Asia, Italy, Europe and the Americas. And one day… to the very tip of Africa.
Where Ozzy will serve his guests the very finest the tradition has to offer from Ozzy’s ‘Just in Case’(the bespoke wooden suitcase that carries all his coffee making paraphernalia and fits on the back of his Land Rover Defender, so it can go wherever he goes).
Ozzy’s coffee will change your day.
And his ideas may change your views about hospitality and how we should travel.
At Rothschild Safaris we are forever hunting for the outliers, the greatest new adventures the Mother City offers her tribe. If you visit Africa and your safari takes you to Cape Town, do chat to your Travel Designer about joining one of our luxury tours.
Browse our itineraries including Cape Town here.
Imagery via ert Shunev, Karl Fredrickson, Connor Vercueil, Cassidy Mills , Michael Hardy