14 DAY TRIAL // When he decided to travel all the way to Africa to visit the Masai Mara reserve in Kenya, Irishman Mickey McCaldin expected that he would get to see at least a few wild animals up close.
What he wasn't prepared for was to come face to face with a cheetah. They might be cats, but they are big ones armed with terrible claws and teeth. Hence, it's always best to keep a distance.
Except sometimes you don't have a choice
One day, while they were touring Kenya's Masai Mara reserve, Mickey McCaldin and his friends chanced to cross paths with a particularly curious young cheetah.
For some reason, the feline took a special interest in the Irishman and jumped inside the group's safari jeep to have a closer look at him. At one point, the wild cat was so close to him that Mickey McCaldin and his companions thought that it would sit in his lap.
“The cheetah just wasn't scared of getting up close and personal. At first Mickey was really relaxed but I think he was quite concerned it might try and sit in his lap,” family friend David Horsey, who caught the encounter on film, said in an interview.
“I've been living in Kenya all my life and I've never seen anything like this,” he added, as cited by DM.
Luckily, the cheetah wasn't looking for an easy meal
His close encounter with the big cat might have scared the bejesus out of him, but other than this, Mickey McCaldin walked away unharmed.
Apparently, the cheetah wasn't so much interested in getting an easy meal as it was in meeting and greeting the weird two-legged creature staring its way from the back of the safari jeep.
Mickey McCaldin's close encounter with the cheetah happened this past June. Together with friend David Horsey and other enthusiasts, the man tracked the cat and its family for a couple of days.
