Sandra Prinsloo on sailing into a war zone and her best spot for a night out

Childhood holidays? I remember getting up very early when it was still dark and piling into the car to go to the bushveld or to my uncle’s farm in Natal, where I learnt to ride horses bareback. I remember early morning runs down to the milk shed to watch the cows being milked and then travelling down to the farm gate by mule cart to deliver the milk. My aunt’s freshly baked bread, cups of steaming cocoa, “krummelpap” with cream and brown sugar and homemade ginger beer.

The best holidays were the long trek down to the Cape from Pretoria with my father at the wheel and my mother dishing out padkos to keep my brother and me from fighting. Long days on the beach, swimming and body surfing, never wanting to go back home for lunch, ending up starving. I never wanted those holidays in Kleinmond to end!

My first trip abroad was to Europe in the days when even flying economy was glamorous. Greece was my first stop. [Actor] Marius Weyers and I travelled together and we would buy a bunch of grapes every morning and trek up the Acropolis and sit on the steps of any one of the monuments and just breathe all that antiquity in. We saw plays, visited museums, danced in tavernas in the Plaka and couldn’t believe our luck.

My most adventurous trip was sailing the Atlantic from Cape Town to Europe on a yacht. I was first mate (I have an offshore skipper licence). It was a great adventure with bad weather and incredibly rough seas, but we had to complete the 6,000 or so sea miles in seven weeks as I had to get back in time to start filming a TV series. It was the hardest but also the most rewarding thing I have ever done, except for acting

My bizarre travel experience was sailing. I sailed a lot in the Mediterranean when I was younger and one year we sailed into the beautiful harbour of Kyrenia in Cyprus without knowing that a war was imminent. We were up in the mountains, taking a break from the boat and waiting for repairs to the fridge when all hell broke loose. It was very difficult getting back to the harbour with roadblocks everywhere, partisans and the army from mainland Greece firing at each other, disappearing with our passports at one roadblock, tanks blocking our way. When we finally got to Kyrenia we had to climb through the back window of the customs building and when we finally were allowed to board our yacht we had to stay below deck  in 47°C with nothing to eat and no fridge. We did have plenty of whisky though and made good use of it.

My best place in the world for a night out would be in a wilderness area, sleeping on the roof rack of my Landy and listening to the animals moving about in the night, feeling the thrill of their proximity. There is nothing to beat the breathless moments when an elephant comes nosing around your camp, the thrill of knowing that you have been allowed to share its space.

The one thing I always make sure I do on holiday is walk a lot. You never can know a place if you haven’t walked it. You also meet the locals that way. Granted some countries are more difficult to walk than others.

I think Tanzania probably has the warmest, friendliest, happy ,helpful people I have ever encountered

Souvenirs? I used to collect a lot of stuff from all over when I travelled. But not necessarily souvenirs — more like piles of pottery, urns, carpets, tiles, knives, spears, doors and so on I now curb the urge!

As for my bucket-list, I still haven’t trekked to the gorillas so that is one thing I'd like to do and the Galapagos Islands is another.

• Catch Prinsloo as glamorous opera diva Maria Callas in the Tony-award winning play Master Class, on now at Pieter Toerien's Montecasino Theatre until April 2.