Cheetah Tracking Adventures, Part 3

DAY THREE
Five AM wake-up, breakfast in bed (we ate in the back of the car, which was technically my bed), and tracking cheetahs through the bush was not a bad way to start the morning! I was pretty tired by this point, but my enthusiasm for seeing the boys was not diminished and I FINALLY could identify them pretty well. Anakin is the one with the really dark spots, Omadillo has the fluffiest face, and Obi-Wan has smaller spots. Really, that is pretty much how you ID cheetahs; they are practically IDENTICAL!

The boys were still pretty lazy and I finished my book while we were sitting with them. They moved only once to find some shade when the sun came out for a bit. It was sprinkling by the time we walked the 2 kilometers back to our camp site. The rain came on VERY suddenly actually and we ate lunch huddled in the back of the car again.

When Rachel arrived to give Ryan his supplies for the day, she came bearing CHESTER! We were going to release him with the boys! So another volunteer and I hopped on the back of the truck with Chester’s crate and we tracked the boys as close as we could get from the road (Rachel’s car has 4-wheel drive). Since we were in the truck that they used to be fed from when they were in captivity, they came running when called. Once they were about 30 meters down the road, we opened Chester’s box. He came right out and went up to the other three and they all started purring and licking each other. They were so cute!

The only other exciting thing about the day (besides the fact that we arrived back at CCF at 7:30, aka over 4 hours later than expected) was that we almost got stuck in a giant mud puddle. Really stuck. Jess and I (the volunteer that was with me in the back) gamely hopped out and pushed the car from the front while Rachel reversed. We were knee deep in mud and water; but joking about it brightly when we eventually got un-stuck. Getting stuck is a huge fear out here in the rainy season since the tractor takes about 5 hours to get out to Bellebino farm to get you unstuck. I was COVERED in mud, but it was okay because my clothes and shoes were already FILTHY from tracking anyways.

We got to CCF in time for dinner and I was very happy to shower after our mud adventures. Really, I have no IDEA how Ryan does it day after day. It is EXHAUSTING tracking those boys!