You’re Such a Chee-tah !

Back in February, I took a solo trip to Kruger National Park. I am trying to get caught up on my adventures but life seems to keep getting in the way of my blogging (all in a good way). In my last Kruger post, I wrote about my sighting of 2 lionesses that I had all to myself. That day in particular was probably my most exciting ever on safari and today I would like to share another fantastic sighting from that same day.

As I mentioned in my post about the lionesses, this day started out grey and misty with rain showers lurking so my expectations were rather low for the day. My first sighting for the day was one of my favorite eagles, the Bateleur. The eagle was fairly close, up in a tree, just off the road. But with the unfavorable weather conditions, the lighting was terrible. After spending 10 or 15 unsuccessful minutes trying to get a decent shot of this bird, I noticied there had been no other cars coming in the opposite direction and the couple of cars that came from behind me did not even stop and quickly continued up the road.

I started to wonder what I might be missing up ahead and gave up trying to photograph the bateleur. I continued up the road and after about a minute I was greeted by around 20 vehicles coming towards me on both sides of the road. I knew it had to be something big but with the tall grass it took me a minute or so to see this:

Cheetahs in the long grassCheetahs in the long grass

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Detour: Under A French Sun

I am still working on a few more safari posts but I thought I would take a quick break and share some photos from a work trip I took back to Nice, France a couple of weeks ago. Before moving to Johannesburg in 2013, I had been living in Nice for over 5 years (and Paris for 8). While we were preparing for landing, I was chatting to the South African couple next to me and they asked if I was going home. Without hesitation I answered that no, I live in South Africa. I paused a few seconds, and then I added, that well in fact, France used to be my home but now I call South Africa home. Regardless, it was fun to be back and even though most of the time I was working, I did have a bit of time to take advantage of the warm riviera sun. We were based in Cannes, and as it was not yet high season, the ambience on the coast was chilled and laidback.

Port of CannesPort of Cannes

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