Baby Cheetahs

Sometimes when you travel, you just get lucky. You can't always explain how or why, but for whatever reason, circumstances turn out in your favour. Pure dumb luck. Which partially explains why we were in a non-descript house in Oudtshoorn. With these guys:

We ended up there for convoluted reasons pretty involving me being bored at the bar the previous evening. and talking to a random Finnish girl there. She mentioned something about baby animals, my ears pricked up and after a while the girls got talking. The next morning I then took the main guy looking after them on some chores in Ruth, and in return Maaret and I were allowed to join Johanna, the Finnish girl, in playing with the cubs, and in Maaret's case, feeding them.

They were less then 3weeks old, and would not be taken into the zoo - the same Cango wildlife sanctuary from yesterday – for another 6weeks or so, where they will doubtless become huge attractions to the mass of holidaying South Africans and tourists. For us, this was an incredibly rare chance to see and hold them much much younger, out of the spotlight and before they were officially announced to the world.

It was absolutely brilliant.