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| Petting Ola |
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| Wish I could lick my boogers |
BEN - We woke up and made a quick breakfast before meeting up with
an American woman and a nice Irish couple.
Sarel would be driving us to the town of Kirkwood and the Daniel Cheetah
Breeding Center and Wildcat Conservancy.
We walked around the shop for a bit waiting for our tour to begin. A young Afrikaans came to take us
around. We went through the gate and
were immediately greeted by two meerkats.
We watched them a bit and made our way over a rickety, wooden bridge that
spanned two enclosures with cheetahs in them.
I was immediately struck by how much bigger they are than I originally
anticipated. It was a pretty hot day out
so the cheetahs were lounging in the shade.
Over the bridge we were able to see two other wild cats, a servile and a
caracal (like a lynx). After watching
the smaller cats prowl around we were taken into a large enclosure where we met Ola, a six year old full-grown cheetah, right there next to us. Ola was in the shade, cat napping. One by one we slowly approached Ola and scratched
her coarse hair as if she were a house cat; under her chin, behind the
ears. The whole time Ola purred so
loudly it sounded like an engine. We
gave her a goodbye scratch and headed over to the leopards. The tour guide went into the cage, and the
big, beautiful male came right out and jumped into her arms (she could hardly
lift him anymore). The leopard was very
fun, stalking and playing hide and seek with her, eventually breaking down and
just jumping on her to lick and get her tummy scratched. We then moved on and saw a young male cheetah
who licked my hand with his coarse sandpaper tongue. Our final stop was at the lion cub den. They had two 6 month old cubs who were very
cute. Simba and Nala!! They came to the fence and let us scratch
them through the bars. One of them came
and licked my hand, which turned into gnawing on it with his fangs, just as a
teething puppy would. He would only bite
a bit, but was surprisingly gentle and could tell if it was too hard. It was definitely one of those moments where
I really had to stop and think about where I was and what I was doing. I was standing in Africa with a lion cub
chewing on my hand. Not an everyday occurrence. On our way out the guide allowed us to hold
the meerkats was very fun; Curious
little buggers. We made our way back to
the backpackers after a fun morning.
Sarel, Gabby, and I were hungry, so Sarel suggested we go get some ‘slap
chips’ and a soda called Iron Brew. Curious
we agreed and were treated to French fries with a bunch of salt and vinegar and
a cola that was sweet and Dr. Pepper-like. Definitely a tasty afternoon snack. We then went to work, painting a chair and weaving
the seat for it out of rope. Afterward,
Corinne, Gabby, and I went and ordered/helped make pizzas from Hazel’s that
were pretty tasty. We made one a veggie
pizza (from the garden) and the other a kudu salami which was delicious. We had the rest of the afternoon to read and
relax before we had the pressure of making dinner for the night for the entire
family. Gabby took control with me as
her sous chef as we cooked up bacon, mushrooms, and chicken which we then
covered with a delicious homemade vodka sauce (this after a hilarious
interaction with Randy where we went over to his bar with a measuring cup
asking for vodka). No one here had ever
heard of vodka sauce and thought we were completely crazy. The meal was a huge success as everyone
scarfed it down happily. Gabby really
impressed everyone. I think our next
project will be chocolate chip cookies because they don’t know what chocolate
chips are! It’s fun bringing new flavors
to a new audience. Should be fun!
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