🇿🇦 | Where Freedom Meets Privilege

My visa restrictions forced me to join a group tour in South Africa - an experience that revealed uncomfortable truths. During two days in Port Elizabeth, I visited two "nature reserves". On the surface, they pulsed with raw wilderness 🦁🌿. But the reality? These were private estates where animals had been purchased and introduced like living props, all to manufacture an "authentic" African experience for tourists. Even in this vast savanna, capitalism reigns supreme 💰. Here, "wildness" comes with a price tag - including the option to hunt specific lions 🎯. Staff will chauffeur you across this staged wilderness in search of your chosen prey, letting you play hunter in this macabre theater. In places like these: • Wilderness becomes a luxury commodity 🏕️💸 • "Authenticity" is carefully choreographed 🎭 • Colonial legacies linger in every transaction ⚖️ I couldn't enjoy this fabricated wilderness - its privilege felt too heavy, its illusions too obvious. Yet I seemed to be the only one in our group who felt this way... Which makes me wonder - who's really crazy here? 🤡 #BigFiveSafari #SouthAfricaTravel #PortElizabeth #EcoTourismOrEgoTourism #TheAfricaTheySell