Lion Park

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Our main activity today was visiting the Lion Park, which is a place that breeds lions and has other animals on display as well. One of the main attractions is that you get to pet and play with lion cubs. Of course, that was the first thing we did once we got there. You basically get in a cage for about 5-10 minutes with 12-15 lion cubs of all different sizes. Some are sleeping, others just relaxing, others pacing around like adult lions and roaring...really cute and funny to see. The 3 rules are that you can't pick them up, can't pet their heads and can't feed them anything. We always went to where other people weren't, because you go in there with 10 other people, so everyone is trying to find the best ones for pictures, or ones that are lying on the rock, etc... We really enjoyed the experience and lined up to go again later in the day, but first, we wanted to go to the nearby giraffes so that we could feed them.

We bought a little bag of food and took turns feeding 2 giraffes. When we started feeding them, nobody was around, so we pretty much had them to ourselves. We took lots of pictures and videos. The 2 giraffes grabbed the food differently from your hand: one simply grabbed it from you palm, while the other would try to wrap its tongue around your hand hoping that you would drop the food onto its tongue. They would come really close to us (and by us I mean our faces), all you had to do was hold the food closer to you. I've always loved giraffes, and to see them so close up was awesome. Our time with the giraffes didn't last very long because soon enough about 15 people came over. That was our queue to check out the other animals: teenage lions, 2 cheetahs, hyenas, muir cats (not sure about spelling), wild dogs, ostriches, and jackals. After viewing them, we lined up to play with the lion cubs again.

After the cubs, we ate lunch and took off on the second activity at the Lion Park: drive our car around the vast field that had giraffes, zebras, buffalos and other animals roaming. The drive took us past another cheetah cage before arriving at the lion camp. The lion camp is a fenced-off area that has 4 camps that houses 4 different lion prides. It is here also that they breed lions. Although fenced, the gates always remain open for cars to enter and leave, and the interesting thing is that workers hang out in the middle of the 4 camps, some of them unprotected, meaning they are not in a fenced area themselves. Yikes!! So you drive into camp 1 and follow the dirt road until you come upon some parked cars, that are obviously viewing the lion pride. The first pride had about 12 lions, most of them sleeping, including the big male leader. He briefly popped his head up to see what was going on, but other than that, not much going on here. Because we drive on their territory, they can come up to your car at any moment and do whatever they want, so the main rules here are to never leave your car and always keep your windows rolled up. One of these two rules came into play in camp 2.

Camp 2 was a lot more exciting, because the lion pride was right up beside the road, so if one was to roll down the window, you could touch them. Because they were so close, the line up of cars was longer, so we had to be patient until everyone was done taking their pictures. When our turn came, that's when things got interesting. That's because in front of us was a mini bus of tourists, and these tourist were trying to get the lions going by sliding a window open and waving their hands outside. That immediately got the attention of 2 lions, who proceeded to approach the car, get up on their hind legs and put their front paws on top of the bus. I now have a better appreciation for how massive lions are and how strong they are, they are very muscular. While one lion was up on one side, the other was biting a piece of the mud flap off. hehe The taunting continued for about 5-10 minutes, and Janel and I had front row seats to the show, although we were actually pretty annoyed with the mini-bus folks because they were teasing the lions for no good reason. You're just supposed to quietly drive by, take your pictures and move on. Just before we left, a lion right outside Janel's window was chewing on a South African flag side mirror cover. During the World Cup, people had these covers on their mirrors to show their support to a particular country, kind of like we decorated our mirrors with a Brazilian flag cover. Janel got a good shot of this lion.

Camps 3 and 4 were not that exciting as the first two because the prides were smaller and sleeping. The last pride only consisted of 2 white lions that weren't too close to the road, so we did not get a good look at them.

After the park, we went to our favorite hangout, the airport, to catch up on some blogging and finally post some photos of the World Cup final. That took a while to complete, but we got it done in one try, so that was a nice way to end the day.

We had been trying to do a tour of Soweto and find an affordable one without any success. Even Nadine, the lady that runs our hostel, failed to find anything good. Anyway, after the airport, we went for dinner and our waiter was from Soweto. He offered to take us on a tour of Soweto the next day along with his girlfriend, who also worked at the restaurant. He said he would do it for free, "on the house" as he said it. He seemed legit so we agreed to meet him the next morning. He said he would take us to Soweto, take us to his old neighborhood and to the Nelson Mandela House, the house Mandela moved into in 1947 that is now a museum. Not too far from this house, Archbishop Desmond Tutu owned a house also.

When we got back to the hostel, I ran all this by Nadine and she thought it was a great idea. She said that is the absolute best way to experience the real Soweto, so that made me feel good about it. Of course we would dress down, take only Janel's little camera, take little money just to be safe. Oh, and to eliminate the suspense, we had an AMAZING day in Soweto, truly unforgettable, an experience I am sure no other tourist had during this World Cup. You'll see in the next post.

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