Track Your Life with Boyd Varty

The Kalahari lion

December 5th, 2024 | Season 4 | 10 mins 47 secs

Tracking the Kalahari lion is an intense experience of extreme endurance, grit and absolute commitment.

Few environments cultivate extreme mindfulness like the desert. There is no margin for error here and I consider my own fragility.

There is a beautiful feeling to driving into the middle of nowhere, and frankly anywhere west of Hukunsi is the middle of nowhere. The land is vast and empty. White desert sand, tall camel thorn trees, rolling plains of dry grass, that just goes on and on and on. The temperature gauge on the vehicle gives a casual outside reading of 46 degrees at three in the afternoon.

We bump along dirt roads into a wildlife concession roughly the size of Switzerland that not a single tourist visits. This land is not even game reserve, it's simply the Botswanan wild lands.

Cheetah

November 21st, 2024 | Season 4 | 12 mins 5 secs

In this episode we embark on what feels like a masterclass in desert tracking.

The first light of dawn hadn't yet cracked the horizon when I found myself breathless, feet sinking into the sands of the Kalahari, trying to match the pace of Kecao, Hamku, and Tamai, on the tracks of a cheetah.

The Road South

November 14th, 2024 | Season 4 | 11 mins 53 secs

We have begun our journey South. In Ghanzi we are warmly greeted by Anneli, who is a descendant of the Dorsland Trekkers, and can be described as the salt of the earth. She shares her knowledge with all the complexities and nuances that only a local can offer and offers a small window of insight into the complex interactions between traditional and modern ways of life in the Kalahari. I'm quickly learning that in this profoundly complicated world,, we often miss the multiple layers and complexity inside of every issue.

Last night in the Delta

November 7th, 2024 | Season 4 | 7 mins 22 secs

african sky, anticipation, boyd varty, bushmen, commitment, connection, delta, elephant, enlightenment, essence, everyday tasks, healing, heat, human connections, intimate reflections, kalahari, landscapes, love, master tracker, planner, reflection, ritual, sacred trance dance, sanctuary, story hunter, storytelling, strategic planning, strategy, survival, trek, untamed, wild

Our organic plans to meet with the Bushmen people are coming together. I am ready and excited to learn from the Bushmen people - who are renowned trackers and people of the land.

Pride

October 31st, 2024 | Season 4 | 12 mins 19 secs

adventure, african sky, aliveness, archetypal energies, botswana, boyd varty, consciousness, footsteps, hunter-gatherer, kalahari, lion tracker, lion tracking, majestic creatures, master tracker, mastery, otto james, perseverance, pug marks, pursuit of complexity, simplicity, spiritual liberation, story hunter, storytelling, wilderness

At sunrise, we cut the tracks of a male lion.

This episode follows our pursuit of this majestic animal through wild and dangerous terrain. Deep down, I feel my own hunter - a desire to compete and survive. I feel a million-year-old drive to find what I'm tracking. I feel how in the wild, there is no margin for error. A mistake out here can mean instant death. And this proximity to real death is paradoxically full of life.

Power of the pack

October 24th, 2024 | Season 4 | 14 mins 55 secs

africa, boyd varty, lion tracking, londolozi, safari, story hunter, storytelling, track your life, wilderness

Our first morning of tracking in the Delta starts early - following the tracks of a lonely hyena track with lacklustre enthusiasm. Suddenly, our morning takes an exhilarating turn and the energy of the group shifts, as we find ourselves on the trail of a pack of Wild Dogs - also known as African Wolves, or Painted Wolves.

Into the Delta

October 17th, 2024 | Season 4 | 13 mins 46 secs

The Okavango Delta is an incredible natural phenomenon that can be seen from space. When we land in Maune, we meet up with two fellow trackers, and graduates of the Tracker Academy, Otto James and Innocent Ngwenya. Personally, there is something very satisfying as a tracker to meeting up with other elite trackers on the edge of a massive wilderness. I couldn't be more excited. There is a feeling of adventure in the air.

Simplicity is abundance

October 10th, 2024 | Season 4 | 9 mins 47 secs

abundance, adventure, alex van den heever, boyd varty, camping, kalahari, londolozi, simplicity, storehouse, story hunter, storytelling, tracker academy

Imagine a time when nature was our storehouse. When we knew how to share and to simply be.
We knew we didn’t need much for our expedition to the Kalahari. For the Bushmen people, food surpluses are not prominent, as the environment itself acts as a storehouse - imagine a sense of deep psychological abundance and knowing you will always be provided for.

The expedition begins

October 3rd, 2024 | Season 4 | 13 mins 39 secs

We are going into a rare place in modern times. We are going back to the wild.

A story apart

September 19th, 2024 | Season 4 | 38 mins 14 secs

andreas sitole, boyd varty, david rattray, leverage, londolozi, morgan housel, stories, story hunter, storytelling, tracker academy

When I was working as a safari guide, I would notice that a story could always shift the group's energetic momentum towards you, which is important when you are guiding. More than being a momentum shifter, a well-crafted story could, in the right moment, be profoundly transcendent.

The personal collective

September 12th, 2024 | Season 4 | 12 mins 13 secs

african bush, boyd varty, depression, lion tracker, lioness, lions, londolozi, personal collective, safari guide, story hunter, storytelling, universal energy, universal truth

If you have begun the journey of becoming a Story Hunter, you have become a character who finds characters, switched on your attention, learnt to see with the right kind of eyes, become someone who can create context. You are now ready to touch the core of what makes the story elevated. I call it the personal collective.