Safari! (Day 2, Part 1)

  Surprisingly, I woke up on my own two minutes before the wake up call at 5am.  I headed to first breakfast sleepy, but excited.  (We eat like hobbits here.  There is breakfast, snack, second breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea, snack, and dinner!)  Usually, first breakfast is just pastries, but they put out peanut butter especially for me and my need for protein in the morning.  :0)  People were so helpful and accommodating the whole trip!  It really helps me to feel included.

   We drove a bit before we saw any animals, but it was well worth it.  The whole game drive up until this point, I was a little disappointed that I wouldn't be seeing any cheetahs.  We were driving through wooded areas and I knew that cheetahs needed large open areas to be able to hunt.  Then we came across such a wide open area and I started to get excited.  

Maybe I would fulfill a childhood dream of seeing a cheetah in the wild!  And I did!  In fact, I saw two!  

One even walked just a few feet behind the jeep!  I was pretty much in heaven.  (For those of you who don't know, cheetahs have been my favorite animal since I was nine years old.  I've done reports on them and watched documentaries about them all through school.)  I think I almost cried a little.  As I was watching these beautiful creatures that had captured my imagination for over a decade, I felt connected to my fourth grade self when I watched shows on Animal Planet and dreamed of the day I would be there myself.  I am so glad I made it to one of my childhood dreams!

Scoping out the nearby herd of antelope.  Unfortunately they were too big to be cheetah food, so hunting would have to wait.

A bit of a drive away, we did see cheetah food though.  These smaller antelope species are, as our guides said, the McDonald's of the savannah.  (You can tell by the M they have stamped on their bum.)  Many of the carnivores just love to eat these guys.

Next it was time for a morning snack of biscuits and tea.  

I already have way too many pictures in this entry, so I'm going to split this day up to make sure the e-mail to my blog goes through.  More later....