"That was absolutely insane," says our head ranger Captain Redbeard Alasdair about this sighting from the end of last week. There were two cheetahs we found, clearly on a mission, and we followed them for a while with two of Rhulani’s vehicles. And suddenly everything happened very quickly. The cheetahs ran off like lightning, as you would expect from the fastest land-living mammal when it has its prey in its sights.
Watching a big cat successfully catch a prey is probably the best thing you can experience on safari. We were following the two cheetahs who were roaming around right next to us, we knew that cheetah kills are one of the rarest sightings but we were still hopeful that something special would happen today.
Alasdair who was driving got his camera ready and then it all happened in a matter of seconds. The cheetahs darted off. They had spotted a few small impalas of a size that was quite doable.
And the prey was killed. As we approached, to our amazement, both cheetahs had an impala firmly in their grip. What? Two cheetahs, two impalas, two prey? We couldn't believe it. We've never seen anything like it before.
Back at dinner in the lodge, there was a lot of conversation at the tables and, above all, only one topic. And everyone agreed, as captain redbeard summed it up: “That was insane”.