Drive two -- the great adventure

Typically morning drives begin at 5:30 a.m., but because the rain was still pouring, Christoph decided to wait an hour, so we got to sleep in until 6 a.m.

Thankfully, the rain had stopped by the time we headed out and the sun was just coming up. Aunt Kathy and I were the only guests on the morning safari, so we got to decide what animals we wanted to find. I was really hoping to see giraffe, so we headed to the North which is where they Christoph said they normally feed.

Somehow, using his special animal ESP powers, Christoph found the giraffe right away. But because it had rained so much the night before, the road we need to take was flooded so we could not get very close. No problem says Christoph – we will just walk to them. Now, Christoph had just finished telling us that just yesterday, he say a family of rhino in this exact area. Still, I figured Christoph knew what he was doing, and he had a very big riffle, so I said what the heck.

So now we are on foot following our guide through the bush. I’m thinking most people probably don’t get this experience, so this is pretty cool. The further we walk, the more water we come to. Christoph then tells us, “It would be better to go barefoot.” Ok…so I take my shoes off, leave them in some tree, and walk barefoot through the African bush. Eventually we are wading through thigh high water and I hoping Cape Cobras don’t like to swim.

We finally got to dry land and are able to get a much closer look at the giraffe. They are such beautiful creates. They are so talk and sleek and move with such grace, they reminded me of ballerinas. There were two babies that Christoph said were only two weeks old.

After our giraffe adventure, I’m thinking the morning couldn’t get any better, but then Christoph says we are going to find the cheetah. And again, within about 30 minutes Christoph had located four cheetahs. And again, he wanted us to walk so we could get a better look.

Now, parts of Sanbona are fenced to keep certain animals separate, so the cheetahs were actually on the other side of the fence, but I was still able to get within three feet of them. And they absolutely did not pay any attention to us – they were much more interested in a herd of springbok behind us.

It was fascinating to watch them, they are very social animals. They would chase each other, rub heads with each other, and purr and meow. I’ve got to say, those cheetah’s meow has got nothing on Tristan. The cheetahs were our final sighting for the morning.