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South African wedding day 5: Shorty’s
By nealejames | April 3, 2007
Now I have to admit to being more than a little disorientated having spent half the day in the back of a Mercedes Vito, drifting in and out of consciousness. Usually on my travels I’ll have a geographical outline in my head of where I’m going. But in that the itinerary was organised by someone else, in this case the groom, I sat back and simply enjoyed the view. And so we headed south. The long tarmac roads lay before us, long, very long, very very long and injested by heat haze. It’s no wonder so many people simply nod off at the wheel on these roads and my own determination to see as much as I could before falling asleep wasn’t helped by the fact our driver and guide; Coen, liked country music. Thank God I wasn’t driving. Did I say the roads were long by the way? Early afternoon we arrived at Shorty’s, one of twenty or so big cat breeding farms in the Free State. Shorty (Durand?) has bred the most majestic of cats all his life, from what I could ascertain. His relationship with these animals is one of respect and commercial transaction. On the one hand he rescues Lions and Tigers from establishments that have failed to value their prizes and on the other, he ‘rehouses’ his stock with breeders, enthusiasts, zoos and… I never did get a straight answer on the hunting question. Some of the cats are hand reared and upon our visit, I sat in the bar/living room of Shorty’s house, with a Cheetah cub clawing playfully at my footwear, pulling at the laces and toying with the family’s Jack Russell. Later on, I appreciated that it would only be a matter of time before this little chappie would be behind steel netting. I was invited into a caged environment to photograph the adult version from five or six feet. I can’t say it was the most comfortable five minutes of my life.
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