Here kitty kitty kitty

Not much happened today other than seeing some wicked wildlife, so here goes some stellar pictures -not tooting my own horn or anything lol-

. . .

Up again at 5am. Yikes!

Not of a lot of activity most of the day. Fell asleep a couple times during our game ride...

Finally got to see a Sable! They are gorgeous <3 <3 ...I feel bad, those guys are mostly black! A cruel joke Africa, tsk tsk tsk.

Did finally get to get close to some Ostrich and their babies!

The female is the brown one

talk about 'rubber necking'

After each game drive, we get greeted with warm smiles and a lovely wet towel !

Damn, we are spoiled !

After a filling and satisfying lunch we popped in the pool, it gets VERY hot at noon. 

We get 4 hours to do whatever before the afternoon drive, so instead of a nap we then drove out to the "Hide" behind the water hole for some sneaky shots of all the animals. 

The "hide" is a steel box covered in large fallen trees, so we can sit hidden right beside the water and be UBER close to the wildlife.

But just like this morning... Not a lot of action, just elephants coming to cool off... I WISH I could have joined in hahaha it was LITERALLY 55 degrees Celsius out in the sun. Ha. Oh my. Hot enough that Jason couldn't even walk back to the tent barefoot on the sand. 

Blows my mind how hot this sand was, and this guy was a Boss and handling the heat.

At 4pm we went out on our afternoon drive (ugh so much driving BUT I can't complain. If we had to walk in the heat, well, no one would enjoy the afternoon lol)

But BAM! Right away we see 2 Painted Dogs. Herds of zebra, wildebeest, giraffe, elephants and one lone waterbuck. 

No, these aren't Hyenas, these cool creatures are "painted or wild dogs"

The guy to the right is an Antelope, not a water buck

Besides the awesome Giraffe, the structure behind him will be another "hide".
Where we can camp out any time of the day to sit to watch the 
animals come and drink -or whatever- at the watering hole

Zebra's get spooked pretty fast, when we show up... they almost always leave

And then!!!!! THREE CHEETAHS!!!! Mwwwwaaaahhaha

So awesome. So awesome. So awesome

If the Painted Dogs hadn't stopped us, we would have just driven right along by, but as we sat there chillin with the dogs, one of the British campers spotted something in a log pile 1/2 a km away... all because the Zebras weren't looking at us. 

Which was not normal.

They were looking at... what?!!!?

So ZOOM ZOOM we went -giggling all the while-

And boom, Cheetahs. These cats were gorgeous. Even tho they were just lounging about, they had this beautiful dangerous grace to them. 

Television never quite accomplishes what really hits your 5 senses.

Literally blows your mind how different it feels when you can look at a wild cat with your own eyes...

WOW.

It's just... freaking... cool.

Don't get me wrong, the small guys get some credit too (termites, chameleons, etc) lol. But I love cats. Meow!

So please enjoy the next 20 pic or so of these guys =D

The Zebras attentively watching every move the cats make, they sure as hell don't want to be dinner

"what ya'll staring at meow?"

Although for their numbers and their quickness, the Cheetah still must stay on alert -not like a Lion- for any larger cats near buy that might make trouble

Don't you just wanna get close for a nice belly rub! ;)

The Painted Dogs came by the opposite side of the water and took a bath.
They had NO idea the Cheetahs were there for a good 5 minutes, but when they did, the female started whoofing and they took off.

Damn kitty, you are purdy!

Itchy back ITCHY BACK!

The other animals waiting patiently for the felines to vacate the water hole, who do they think they are anyway? :P 

Sat there taking pictures for a while. Came to a conclusion that a Zoo will never do this justice. Ever. 

This is just too epic. 

Not to mention unlimited beer and wine while touring around. 

At sunset, we parked by a bunker near a watering hole, cracked a couple beers and had a great chat. The wildebeest were the only guys who came for the evening show, better than nothing!

I cannot remember what this bird is called, but his elongated wing tips give him the look of an ENORMOUS butterfly in the night. It is stunning. Anyone know this bird???
Lol, we almost ran this guy over on our drive back to camp.

One last note... During the game drives one eventually has to go pee, well... going to the bathroom in the middle of dangerous African territory feels like you are painting a target on your head LOL

It just feels like something is lurking near by and will pounce when you are in mid-pee or something.

Or is it just me? ;)

One more blog post to go!