Paw patrol: Inside the only reserve in Africa where you can walk with wild cheetahs

During a recent walk through Samara Karoo Reserve in South Africa’s Eastern Cape, I learned the recipe for the ultimate safari sundowner — and it wasn’t a G&T.It was golden light, blissful silence, and a wild cheetah lounging 20 feet away like she owned the place.

(She did.)Her name is Mbali, and despite her regal pose, she’s a busy mother.Her litter of six mischievous cubs was still hanging onto its last bits of baby fluff: silver-gray mullets meant to disguise them as fierce honey badgers.

As the sun set, I crouched low to watch Mbali groom and nuzzle her little ones, amazed that the family remained so relaxed and confident around humans. Such a rare privilege is possible thanks to Mbali’s great-grandmother, the legendary Sibella, and decades of careful, responsible habituation.Wild cheetahs — notoriously skittish animals — have been accustomed to people on foot at Samara since 2004, when Sibella was released on the reserve after being rescued and rehabilitated by the De Wildt Cheetah & Wildlife Trust following a brutal hunting attack.She became the first cheetah in South Africa’s Great Karoo region — decimated by unregulated farming and hunting — in almost 130 years.Despite the trauma she experienced at human hands, Sibella remained remarkably relaxed around Samara’s guides, permitting them to accompany her — and later her cubs — on foot.“Scientists can’t explain it,” said Sarah Tompkins, Samara Karoo Reserve’s founder and director.

“Given her previous abuse, Sibella should have been terrified.But she allowed human beings into her space and to view her cubs.” That incredible legacy continues today.

Each new cheetah generation, raised in an environment where humans keep a respectful distance, lets people approach on foot.Today, Samara, a leader in rewilding the Great Karoo, is considered one of the best places on the continent to photograph cheetah.

Guests can also opt to book the Cheetah Trail, a three-night sl...