On safari, we spotted this mother cheetah with 5 cubs. It is extremely rare to see more than 3 cubs as once
as they are the prey of other animal gods of wild.
On our last safari, we stopped at dusk for a drink. After finishing up our cocktails and laughing
about the drunken elephants, we set out for adventure again. We’d been searching for a leopard
all week, but to no avail. We rode into the night as my friends told me they had been visiting
Thorny Bush for 43 years and had never witnessed the animal behavior we had seen in just
those few days. Suddenly, our driver began to speed around corners. The only thing lighting our
way through the wild of Africa’s bushveldt was our two small headlights and a sky full of stars.
The wind excited me as it ripped through my hair, and I was feeling some intoxicating properties
of my own previous cocktail. We wondered, “why is our guide driving so furiously?” I laughed
about it being our final joy ride of the week, and then suddenly we came to a halt. We sat in
darkness, and I could only hear whispers from our guide situated two seats in front of me. Slowly,
we crept around a corner, and found ourselves positioned atop a hill overlooking a dry river bed.
“There she is…” I heard someone whisper. A member of our crew turned on his spotlight, and
shone the light into the river bed. Seductive eyes of a big kitty cat peered back at us. Casual,
cool, and undisturbed by our presence, the leopard lie alone in the rocky terrain.
Her quiet contentment emanated a lesson of independence and a value of solitude- a lesson that
I’ve come to cherish most in life after venturing into the African wild alone.