African Safari

Yeah...I should title this one "Things They'd Never Do in the US in a Million Years" or "My Day with the Lion Cub". I mean, we did other things, but did I mention that I got to hold a 2 month old lion cub named Momo-kun? No, well, I'll get to that...repeatedly.

This was another park where we showed up at 9am for the opening and were the third group there. I must say, though, that it's awesome to get someplace early and really have it pay off.

We began by opting for the bus tour through the safari area. 1) They give you food to feed the animals. 2) They give you tongs for holding the food. 3) The insurance on the rental car is pretty good, but I really don't feel like explaining HUGE claw marks.

We fed lions and tigers and bears - oh my! And elephants and giraffes and elk and more that I am certain I'm forgetting. We were actually mere inches from the teeth of big cats and dropping hunks of raw meat into their mouths. Now, we were pretty safely behind metal bars in the jungle bus (omg, the jungle bus...so cute. It's actually shaped like an animal and you get to ride around in it.) Nevertheless, I got to hear lions roar 10 feet away and hear a tiger meow (yeah...it's bigger than a meow, but you get the point) as it walked up and took the food. I even heard it purr - I mean, I'd heard that tigers were the only big cats that could purr, but WHOA! they purr. We saw cheetahs (and a zebra in the same section...hmmm...I'm pretty sure I've seen that on the Discovery Channel and it's not family friendly.), but didn't get to feed them. They wouldn't come up to the bus, even. Each animal type was in it's own section of the park. Each section was double fenced and had an armed guard in a little hut between the fences. There were also jeeps near any animals on the road so the buses and cars knew to look out for them (and to bail out any cars that might get in trouble).

Once the bus tour was over (about an hour), we went to the main park. I got to hold a lion cub. Seriously, that was first on my list. See that idiotic grin on my face? I walked around all day just giddy that I got to hold a lion. I have this overwhelming fascination with white tigers. They are beautiful and graceful and if I could be Siegfried and Roy, baby, I'm there. Now, they weren't offering the chance to hold white tigers, but a big cat is a big cat. They had 2 - one 7 months old and one 2 months. They were doing pictures with the 2 month old. The shots are totally posed. While cute, artificially nursed and incredibly soft, these are still wild animals. They have no attention span. The trainer held him until we were settled. She then coached me on how to prop him up and put him in my lap. There was no reaching to take him. He liked to look up at my face (no, stop that, he was NOT eyeing my jugular. I looked right at him. Well, yeah, that hid my jugular. I'm not *that* stupid.) between shots. He mewed. He was just adorable. Roo got to pet him. Owl held him (incorrectly) and he got upset. They took him away, but not until he'd nipped the trainer a bit too hard. Still...I got to hold a lion cub. So cool!

We walked through the rest of the park. Roo got to feed caged squirrel monkeys and seemed to enjoy that much more than her last experience at the Bio Park. They tickled her hands and she laughed. There were some little ride on vehicles that she played with and a trained dog show that kept her attention for 10-15 minutes.

All in all, a very good time. I got to hold a lion cub. We got to feed big animals. Roo got a stuffed tiger that's as big as she is. She will have NO appreciation for how rare these animals are and no memory of what she's experienced here. Thank goodness for photos.