Cheetah Park

Trip Start Feb 25, 2007
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Trip End Nov 12, 2007


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Wednesday, May 9, 2007

May 9th: Today we broke camp from Spitzkoppe and headed for Cheetah park. We arrived shortly after lunch and had the early afternoon time to enjoy the pool after pitching camp.  At 1530 we met the guy who runs the camp and was taken to the house to meet the three "domestic" cheetahs. Having already pet a cheetah in South Africa and coming straight from the pool I stupidly forgot my camera.  This was a mistake because these cheetah's were amazing creatures and it was much less of a controlled environment than I had expected.  We were seated along the side of the house when the first cheetah cam in and went straight for my leg and started licking my skin with a tongue that was rougher than sandpaper. Then he started licking my arm as the handlers pulled him away.  Later on, while petting the same cat he flipped over and slammed his paw down on my foot in an effort to steal my flip flop - which he succeeded. What followed was a game of tug and war with a 50 kg cheetah to get my flip flop out of his mouth Wild Cheetah
Wild Cheetah
 . I've got two cheetah teeth prints right through the bottom of my flip flops now. After the photos and petting was done they brought dinner out to the cheetahs which was cut up pieces of raw donkey. the cats devoured the meat so quickly and neatly it was amazing to watch them chow down just 5 feet away. After dinner (their's, not ours) we loaded into the trucks and went to see the 15 wild cheetahs on the ranch. As soon as we got into the gate the cats immediately ran two us stalking the trucks. We figured out why about 15 minutes later when they stopped and pulled out the dinner (more donkey). they took turns throwing the chunks of meat to the left and the right and we saw the wild cheetah's fighting each other for who gets the first piece of meat. After they were all fed we went to another smaller section to throw dinner over the fence to four cheetah cubs and the mother.
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