Namibian Wildlife - Close Up and Personal

Annette relaxes with a tame Cheetah

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Another day, another adventure!

We moved on from Etosha to a Cheetah Park at Otjitongue Lodge (don't ask me how to pronounce it) near Kamanjab to visit the local Cheetahs.

The camp site was dire, poor toilet facilities, a locked bar so nowhere to get out of the rain, and a leaky cooking area.

None of that mattered because of the cheetahs (although Annette and I were on cooking duty, got soaked preparing tea and still managed to dish up an outanding meal including banana pancakes with Southern Comfort in case you are interested).

We started our visit with three tame cheetahs who were more than happy for us to pet and stroke them (at least whilst their owners were there - I got left behind briefly at the end and was not quite so convinced once I was on my own with them).

At least we think these are the tame ones.

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One of the cheetahs went to lick my leg when I wasn't expecting it and I'm sure it laughed when I jumped into the air.

After the tame cheetahs, we went to see the wild animals being fed.

We all loaded onto the back of a pickup truck and drove up to what looked like an airlock system with a big gate leading into a compound with another big gate off that. It was a bit of a surprise to then realise that most of the cheetah were inside the first gate and not the second.

There are about 22 cheetah on the site in total and we saw five or six come up for feeding. The keepers threw chunks of donkey to them within feet of us and they battled and scrapped for it before running off with their winnings into the bush. Even when they'd only gone ten feet or so, they were almost invisible unless they moved.

And this was without using the zoom.

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Wow!