Cheetah up close
The male for example was a problem cheetah and always hunted the cattle on the neighbour’s farm. Instead of shooting him, he was brought here. Two of the females are in here, because a farmer has shot their mother and he didn’t want to shoot the puppies as well. How gracious, this farmer!
As we approach the about 2.3 meter high fence I feel a little anxious. Our safari jeep is finally completely open and a hungry cheetah could probably smash his teeth into my lower leg without any problems.
Since the cheetahs wear all radio collars, our guide Nico tries to locate the females now. After a 10 minute drive we actually see our first cheetah lying totally chilly under a bush in the dust. My heart almost stops. Unbelievable to see such an animal without a grid and then only 10 meters away from me.
When our two drivers get out of the jeep I can’t believe it. That can‘ t be serious, that they are really getting out! Nico starts to explain some rules, we shouldn’t drop anything on the ground, because otherwise she thinks it’s food and we should always stay between him and Hanna. Really now, we should also get out? Are they completely insane?
Yes, they are – and so our group is standing at 5 meters distance to cheetah girl Laura. This is an experience that I will never forget. In my mind, I dig for all the things I learned from Bear Grylls about survival strategy. But the only thing present right now is how he drinks his own pee out of snake skin. That doesn’t help me right now.
So I get myself together and do not run off screaming and crying towards the safari car. Instead I collect all my senses and am ready to flee. Then Laura gets up and moves towards the fence. Hanna explains that the cheetahs like to sit at the fence and watch passing kudu herds. This must be something like standing in front of a restaurant you can’t afford, Mirko notes appropriately. He’s hungry again.
About 2 weeks ago a clumsy Kudu jumped over the fence. If it had known before that it had landed in a cheetah camp, it would have probably reconsidered this jump, because the male of the group did not hesitate to serve himself. However, Hanna notes, these cheetahs would never have killed the Kudu if they had met it in the wild. Everyone here is too old and too weak for that.
The cheerful group of tourists walks in some distance behind Laura, who meets her sister after about 30 meters and cuddles generously with her. Awesome, I still can’t believe that there are two cheetahs sitting in front of me, who might confuse me with a kudu. If only I knew where I put the documents for my accident insurance. When I’m at home, I’ll start looking right away!
After the two of them have had enough of the humans, we drive on and visit the male of the group. By the way, this is the one who recently caught the Kudu. A very trustworthy guy. Here we get out again and can watch him very close. He looks quite relaxed and lolls like a kitten on the heater. When he is fed up with us too, we try to find another roommate before sunset. We are lucky, only a few driving minutes away we can see two more cheetahs, which have made themselves comfortable under a bush. Hanna and Nico hand out beer and red wine and we can watch the two cats in the sunset grooming their fur. I can’t believe this is really happening. I am standing in the Namibian savannah with a beer and can almost pet a cheetah.
The next morning after breakfast we continue to Sesriem and then into the desert. But first we want to refuel our car at the only gas station, because we think that our fuel needle is broken. After more than 300 kilometres it still says „more than completely full“ and that can’t be true.
As it turns out we are wrong. We have two tanks with a total of 140 litres of fuel and only used 30 litres. For our battleship this is nothing, for my Fiat Panda on the other hand a whole tank filling. At least the Namibian gas station attendants had something to laugh about.
Next: Namib Naukluft Park (oming soon)