Today we drove.

And we drove.

And we drove.

It was SO incredibly hot that pretty much the entire bus was passed out for the entirety of the drive, aside from when we hit the shopping mall with bathroom and ATM. I’d say everyone woke up and hopped off the bus at that point!

Then we piled back on and finished the drive to Otjitotongwe Cheetah Park. We arrived, threw together camp and had lunch, and we got picked up by the owner of the Cheetah Park. And by picked up, I mean he drove up with an open air trailer hitched to the back of a pickup and we jumped on. He drove us over to his home, where apparently orphaned baby cheetahs are raised as tame (or as tame as cheetahs can really be I suppose). After a quick safety briefing, we were let inside and the cheetahs wandered over to check us out. We got to pet them (only approach from the back and only pet them behind their ears and on their necks), one of them rolled on Andrew and tried to snuggle his leg, and another tried to gnaw on Amberlee’s leg…and then the guide decided enough was enough of THAT, and he tossed them each a piece of meat and we got to spectate while they had their dinner.

After the cheetahs finished their meal, we piled back up on our transport and we got to drive through the wild cheetah park, where another 14 cheetahs live relatively naturally (they’re fed one steak per day because there’s not enough local game for them to hunt and eat otherwise). They prowled around after us for quite a while doing things cheetahs do, until eventually our guide stopped for dinnertime for these “wild” guys as well. He pulled out a garbage can full of raw cow steaks, slowly counted to three (presumably so we could take pictures and not for any benefit to the cheetahs), and then threw one steak at a time into the cheetah crowd.

The noises they made surprised EVERYONE in the group. There weren’t roars like we anticipated, but more loud squeaks and yelps like you’d expect from a pack of domestic cats! One cheetah would catch or claim the meat and stalk off happily, until all of them had a slab for dinner. We were all pretty surprised at the civility of the whole experience, and then we got a huge laugh at the end because the first cheetah to catch a steak tried to sneak back for a second. The guide was well aware of the blood on her face though, and she was sent off without a second helping. Sorry, girl!

Once everyone had been fed we headed back to camp in our sweet cheetah park limousine, and some people went off to the pool, and some decided to just relax before dinner and passing out for the evening.