The Most Exciting Thing You'll See All Day

Back to the South Africa posts! The winery we stayed at also had a small cheetah sanctuary. Cheetahs are an endangered species and are still frequently targeted by farmers for killing livestock. The purpose of the sanctuary is to raise awareness about the plight of the cheetah and to promote alternate methods of protecting livestock, including the use of Turkish Anatolian Shepards, which are giant, fast, and extremely protective dogs that are famously good at protecting herds of livestock from bears and wolves (the center also breeds the dogs). 

The center houses about 15 cheetahs, including the cubs above. The center breeds the cheetahs and feeds and cares for them. Here are some interesting facts about cheetahs:

• Cheetahs sleep 18 hours a day
• There are wild cheetahs in Iran. Iran! And all this time we worried about nukes.
• Cheetahs are indifferent to German goth girls:

And of course, cheetahs are famously fast. We had the amazing luck of catching one in action while we were at the center, but it was almost too quick to capture. So lean in and pay attention, or you'll miss it: