South Africa's Lost City by Maureen Barry

Legend has it, boosted by a healthy dose of media inspiration, that a lost civilisation originating in the North of Africa migrated to Bophuthatswana and there, in a Shangri-la called the Valley of the Sun, they constructed their own spectacular Eden. The secluded valley, shaped from an ancient volcanic crater, was beautiful beyond all imagination and here the Ancient Ones prospered, finding gold and platinum in the valley and erecting a regal city and magnificent palace on a scale the ancient world had never seen. Then one day a volcanic eruption ripped their idyllic world apart, reducing the city to rubble — only the palace remained. Almost 300 centuries after the great explosion, in the last decade of the 20th century, an expedition came upon this sacred locale and its fabulous ruins. Now these just happened to be right next to Sun City, the inspirational fun centre of the ebullient hotelier par excellence Sol Kerzner, so he and his architects took on the challenge to restore the palace in the Lost City to its former glory, transforming it into what must be the world’s most fantastic and luxurious resorts.

Sol Kerzner’s pipe dream lies somewhere between Rider Haggard’s Lost City and Kipling’s The Jungle Book with a large dose of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom thrown in for good measure. The fantastically sculpted towers of the palace loom into the African sky just on the edge of the Sun City resort. No expense has been spared to turn the palace into a lavish cocktail of tastes and styles that sets the senses reeling. As I braved the sweeping entrance flanked with life-sized carved elephants, the roadway began to shake and tremble, smoke and flames issued mysteriously out of nowhere and oozed eerily from the elephants’ eyes, and at the end of the whole episode a 20-foot flame erupted from the enormous carved basin that stands in front of the palace’s imposing entrance.

In this time-warp theme park there’s a gigantic entertainment centre linked to Sun City by the Bridge of Time, with a tempting Slots Casino where 500 slot machines are located in what appears to be a cavern hewn out of the rock, adorned with giant animal sculpture. A mighty night sky arches over this Hall of Treasures and fools you with an incredibly lifelike fibre optic recreation of the Milky Way. It’s easy enough to risk a few rand at the roulette and blackjack at what must be one of the liveliest casinos you’d wish to win or lose — your shirt in.

For your further entertainment there’s a Revue that pulls out all the stops, rivalling the best of Las Vegas, four cinemas, superbowl, bingo, shopping arcades, and if you should get peckish in the entertainment centre head for where Mona Lisa smiles inscrutably, ‘cos she’s holding a master pizza from Leonardo’s Pizza Workshop. Music plays, there’s the occasional jungle sound as the chirrup of crickets or the call of bullfrogs vie with the sizzle of cooling lava - or it could be the sizzle of frying sausages from the fast food Sausage King beneath the branches of the Sausage Banyan Tree, a tree reportedly planted centuries ago by the Ancients themselves.

The hotel’s 350 rooms offer truly royal accommodation — Rider Haggard never experienced anything like this — guests have been pampered beyond description by interior designers who have worked the Lost City theme to the nth degree, including zebra-striped pencils and parchment writing paper tied up like ancient scrolls.

The Crystal Court restaurant spreads under a massive Venetian chandelier in the entrance chamber. Here you can enjoy breakfast, lunch, dinner — and my favourite — full English afternoon tea, in such sumptuous surroundings that you might be too busy craning your neck to place an order. Mighty cast stone columns rest on elephants’ feet and a central fountain is carried on the backs of four tuskers, from whose trunks water streams into a bronze bowl. When you do get round to thinking about the food it’s Californian/Pacific Rim - or there’s the Villa de Palazzo, which serves the very best of Italian food, High Renaissance style.

But this is Africa, so outside there’s a 25-hectare designer jungle, brought to instant maturity by a team of landscape consultants who have lovingly nurtured more than 1.6 million plants, trees, shrubs and ground cover gathered from the four corners of the earth and transplanted them into the resplendently lush Valley of the Ancients. Water, water everywhere is the dominant theme of the Valley, the jungle is threaded with waterfalls, lakes and pools and — the real thrill for kids of all ages — a pulse-throbbing variety of water-borne adventure rides.

There’s no doubt that many visitors come to the Lost City just to play golf - and who could blame them, as the Gary Player-designed course is the first desert-style golf course ever constructed in this part of the world. One watering hole where you wouldn’t dream of venturing in after your ball is number 13, where live crocodiles sport themselves in the sun all day.

Not to be missed is a game-drive in the nearby Pilanesberg National Park. This is just 15 minutes away from the Lost City by jeep and is a protected area of outstanding natural beauty. All the game indigenous to the region is found here, with the exception of lion as they haven’t yet made the fencing of the Park big-cat proof. It’s a thrill to realise that just minutes from the fun and fantasies of the Lost City you really are in untamed Africa, when your jeep tries to keep pace with South Africa’s national emblem the springbok, or you try to outstare a black rhino and admire the sweeping eyelashes of an inquisitive giraffe.

“It has always been my ambition to build the finest hotel in the world”, said Sol Kerzner. “The palace is my dream come true.” There’s no doubt that the Lost City is one of the most dramatic man-made landscapes in the world, devoted to fun and pleasure, a make-believe world of mystery and splendour, where new-age explorers can indulge their wildest fantasies.