Chameleons, Giraffes, and Cheetahs OH MY!

May 21, 2011 Today we drove to Kamanjab to visit and camp at the Cheetah Farm. On the way there Larkin had put us on chameleon lookout. Monica and I were desperate to see a chameleon the whole trip, and Larkin had promised that you can usually see them crossing the road. Sure enough Larkin spotted a desert chameleon crossing the road, so we pulled over to have a look! He was a very chunky little guy and we were able to hold him and have a photo shoot. We then placed him on his destination side of the road and trekked onward to the Cheetahs! As soon as we pulled up there was a juvenile giraffe that came running up to our truck. Apparently they had found this giraffe a year or two ago stuck in their fence. They couldn't find its mother so they decided to bottle feed it. The giraffe is now semi-tame, but he comes and goes as he pleases. They said he had recently came back after being gone for over three months. This was a real treat for us because we were able to pet and take photos with a giraffe. The cheetah farm has 16 wild cheetahs that they have rescued from farms where they faced sure death. They also have 4 cheetahs that were abandoned from their mothers that were rehabilitated and bottle fed. These 4 cheetahs will never be wild and so they literally live in the front yard of their house. We were lucky enough to go inside their yard to interact with the semi-tame cheetah. They reminded us that no wild animal is truly tame and that we must keep our guard up- after all these still are big cats. This was most certainly a special experience to be able to get close up and personal with one of Africa's big cat predators. It was awesome! We were able to pet and take photos with them. After we were done lounging with the "tame" cheetahs we were taken on a game drive to view the "wild cheetahs". This was a little spooky because we had 14 cheetahs stalking our vehicle. These cheetahs are free to hunt for themselves, but they still feed them if they do not have a kill that day. For the rest of the night we cooked and sat around the fire and gazed up in awe at the spectacular African night sky!

Tara!