Early one morning, five of us climbed aboard a safari vehicle and headed into the Bushman\u2019s Kloof wilderness of the Cederberg Mountains in South Africa\u2019s Western Cape. This was not, however, a safari in the usual sense. We had no expectations of seeing lions, elephants, giraffes, or any of the other fabled African game animals. <\/p>\n
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<\/figure>\n<\/div>\nInstead, the guide drove us through a scrubby landscape to a gallery of ancient rock art, the legacy in rust-red of the ancient San people who once called this region home. \u201cThis is one of more than 2,500 rock art sites in this region,\u201d our guide Tristan Kapp explained. \u201cUNESCO recognizes the Cederberg as a World Heritage Site for the abundance of these paintings. We don\u2019t know exactly how old they are, but estimates range from 3,000 to 10,000 years. All of it is the work of an ancient people known as the San. Their art is so revered that some of it appears on the South African crest.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.aluxurytravelblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Tristan-Kapp-roger-cox-photo-ALTB-920x767.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\u201cThe Europeans called them \u2018Bushmen\u2019, but that term is now considered pejorative,\u201c Kapp continued. \u201cThe San are one of the oldest surviving cultures in southern Africa. Genetic evidence suggests that they diverged from other humans between 100,000 and 200,000 years ago. They were semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers who traveled in small groups following the seasonal animal migration.\u201d<\/p>\n
The first paintings we saw covered the back wall of a shallow cave. Stick figures abounded, singly and in groups, as did elephants, antelope, and what may have been wildebeest. Kapp began by pointing to a picture of an elephant with arrows in its head, flanked by a baby and two men with bows. \u201cAn automatic assumption would be that they were hunting an elephant,\u201d he began, \u201cbut they have no way of killing an elephant.\u201d He suspects the painting is telling a different story. \u201cThe baby is painted with its trunk up\u2014it\u2019s trumpeting an alarm to call for its mother, and we know that mother elephants are very aggressive when it comes to protecting their babies,\u201d he continued. \u201cRealizing they\u2019re in trouble, hunters fire a few arrows and run away.\u201d <\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.aluxurytravelblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/elephant-baby-warning-roger-cox-photo-ALTB-920x767.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\nAs Kapp looks at the grouping, he sees it as a visual learning aid. \u201cThis could be a way of issuing a warning,\u201d he suspected. \u201cIt says, \u2018if you get too close to a baby elephant, the mother will get angry and potentially come after you\u2019.\u201d That is, Kapp went on to admit, \u201cone possible hypothesis.\u201d But there is a basis for it. \u201cIn the late 18 th century, two researchers, William Bleek and Lucy Lloyd, learned the San\u2019s click language so they could interview them, beginning with those that lived on their farm. It\u2019s their archive, which has something like 15,000 pages, that has helped us interpret what we\u2019re seeing, especially when it comes to their spiritual world.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe San believed that what you painted on these walls would be visible in the spiritual world as well,\u201d he went on, pointing to a figure painted next to a natural hole in the rock. \u201cIf white walls acted as a window or a veil, a little hole like this one would be a passageway to the world beyond, so the figure close beside it would most likely be a shaman, perhaps in a trance state.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.aluxurytravelblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/hole-shaman-roger-cox-photo-ALTB-920x767.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\nWe visited two different rock-art sites. With Kapp\u2019s help we could see that a cluster of stick figures\u2014all male\u2014probably chronicled a coming of age ceremony; a drawing with lines connecting one character with two others could be a shaman making a spiritual connection with them; an animal with pointed ears and a curved tale depicts local Cape leopard; and then some of them were just doodles, an idle diversion on a rainy day. Although some of these were a bit crude, others had very fine lines, delicate enough to suggest arrows or the string of a bow. These are not details that could be done with a finger. \u201cThe San used tools to paint,\u201d Kapp told us. \u201cOne likely candidate is a feather\u2014not the quill, which they\u2019d stick into a hollow reed as a holder\u2014but the bristles. You could turn it one way to paint very, very thin lines and the other way to produce broader strokes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pigments for painting came from several sources. \u201cThe red we see is red ochre, a stone that is very common around here,\u201d he told us. \u201cThey would grind it against sandstone to get a red powder. They also used yellow ochre for yellow, charcoal for black, and ground-up ostrich shell for white. To make paint, they\u2019d mix any of these colors with liquid animal fat to create what is essentially oil-based paint to work with. Today, we only see the rust-colored red,\u201d he continued. \u201cBut that\u2019s not the paint. That\u2019s the pigment that penetrated the rock. The yellows, whites, and blacks are all gone.\u201d<\/p>\n
He pointed to an example of a probable sheep. \u201cAnother group that inhabited this region, the Khoi, were sheepherders, and it\u2019s possible they raised a black-headed breed that\u2019s very popular in this area. I grew up on a farm, so when I look at this drawing, it immediately says sheep to me. It has the same-shaped head, a bit of a neck, and what would have been a white body. Next to it looks like a newborn lamb\u2014its legs are way too long for these small little bodies.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.aluxurytravelblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/rock-art-sheep-roger-cox-photo-ALTB-920x767.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\nLike the white paint on the sheep, some of this art will disappear, eroded by wind and water, buried when the sandstone collapses, and, most distressing, by the vandalism of insensitive visitors.<\/p>\n
Most of this rock art is accessible to the public. Maps of routes are readily available in the local town of Clanwilliam, so I could have headed out to explore this rock art on my own. But it\u2019s one thing to see the art; another to understand it. I\u2019d chosen to stay at Bushman\u2019s Kloof, a tranquil wellness retreat within the nature reserve, in part because it offered daily rock-art tours.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.aluxurytravelblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/springbok-roger-cox-ALTB-920x767.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\nBeyond the appeal of the guided tours, this wilderness lodge is most alluring as an indulgent sanctuary. It has just 14 rooms and suites and two villas, scattered through an oasis of lawn and verdant trees beside a narrow, seasonally dry river. Every room has a private terrace with wilderness views, and each has been individually decorated with a collection of handpicked art, antiques, and heritage furniture pieces. There are four swimming pools, a spa, hiking and mountain biking trails, and a lake for canoeing. Breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea, and dinner are all included, as are the rock-art tours and a late-afternoon game drive. It also maintains a Heritage Centre, with information and artifacts to help you to delve deeper into the art and ancient culture of the San people.<\/p>\n
Its setting is also part of the Cape floral region, a biodiverse landscape called fynbos\u2014Dutch for \u201cfine bush\u201d\u2014with some 9,000 species of plants, among them laurel protea, red disa, snow protea, and, high on the mountain cliffs, the now rare Clanwilliam cedars, from which the region takes its name. Finally, the Cederberg is famous for rooibos, a plant grown nowhere else and famous as a healthy tea\u2014a chilled glass of which you receive on arrival.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.aluxurytravelblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/cederberg-landscape-roger-cox-photo-ALTB-920x767.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\nBushman\u2019s Kloof Wilderness Reserve & Wellness Retreat is 270 km (170 miles) north of Cape Town, South Africa. Lodging rates vary seasonally.<\/p>\n
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<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nRoger Cox<\/h3>\n
Roger Cox is a travel writer from New York, USA He is a veteran travel journalist whose work has appeared in Luxury Magazine, Travel+Leisure, Esquire, The Robb Report, and many more.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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