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Here's a story from my 1998 Tanzania Safari Once upon a time (hey, come on --I don't get to write stories too often) there was charming prince, er, safari escort named Kevin. OK, he wasn't too charming but he was a safari escort. His group of 22 safari adventurers and 5 driver/guides was out on the Serengeti Plain one late afternoon looking for wildlife. We had just awaken from our post-lunch naps and were ready for something really wild. Of course, as evening approaches on the Serengeti the cats and other carnivores get up from their naps, too. They're hungry and on the prowl for something yummy. Not Yumi. Yumi was one of our safari adventurers and we made sure that she and all the rest of us were safe from predation inside our "luxury" safari vehicles. As we looked around, we noticed a large adult female cheetah followed by two younger cheetahs. They weren't cubs, but they weren't fully adults yet either. It looked like mom had spotted something and, sure enough, we saw what she was after: a Grant's gazelle. My driver James shook his head and said that I was bad luck for gazelles. He recalled how we saw a leopard stalk and kill a Grant's gazelle on the 1997 Tanzania Safari. He and another guide, Rashidi, had wanted to leave the leopard and her cub to find something else but I had insisted we stay because I just knew that she was going to get something. Well, I had to admit that James was right this time --I had that feeling again!
And the all lived happily ever after. Except the gazelle.
This page was last edited on 04/01/07.
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Our cheetah and her young ones suddenly darted! By the time we caught
up with them, they had just pulled down the gazelle by the back of the neck.
It's legs were kicking, ever more slowly, as it's life ebbed. You can see in this photo
mama dragging her new meal into a more defensible spot. You never know when a lion
or a group of hyenas might make a challenge for this prize!
Well, before you could say "hakuna shida!" a group of challengers
DID arrive. But who would have thought? Mongooses? As the photo shows, a
group of mongooses that happened to be passing through just couldn't walk (scurry?) past
something so yummy. They weren't sure how close they could get, so they just kinda
kept their distance and got up on their hind limbs so they could check out the scene.
They were probably thinking "Hmmmm.... I wonder if we could take
'em?" 
Well,
it didn't take long before the cheetahs realized that the threat was possibly no idle one.
Puny as they might be, it's annoying having them looking over your shoulder (and
probably drooling!) while you are leisurely finishing a wonderful meal just before the
Serengeti sun sets.
Well, the
mongoose challenge crumbled pretty darn fast! When one of the cheetahs charged
--why, I thought those startled mongooses were going to jump into our van! They
squealed so loud it startled even the cheetahs! And the way they trampled each other as
they ran off --I'm surprised that some of them didn't get hurt and left behind.
James and our other guides couldn't stop laughing. Nor could we --you just had to be
there! You can, next time! 
