Lion Parks and Museums

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The Lion Park

Yes, I know, you can go to lion parks anywhere. In fact my parents took me to a couple in Australia when I was a kid. But this is different. This is seeing lions caged in their natural African habitat instead of caged in an Australian habitat.

As corny as this is, it was good fun. We got to play with the cubs and see some albino lions (which I didn't even know existed). There were also a few bored giraffes, springbok, zebra, meercats, and dogs to see -- just like any other zoo.

The best part was driving through the lion enclosures. We had fun leaning out of the car to take pictures and then getting our limbs inside the car and closing the windows before one of the young lions took a swipe at us. We managed to get out with all limbs intact and left the lions as hungry as they were when we arrived.

After about four hours of sitting in traffic jams (other cars were going pretty slow around the lion circuit) we finally escaped and headed back to base.

Apartheid Museum

As with any museum with nothing to show but photos, pictures, and stories, this was boring. It was also packed. I'd advise anyone to avoid this place and instead read up about apartheid in Nelson Mandela's excellent books or any of the dozen or so other ones that are out there. The one interesting thing in the museum is the armored car that the police used to use when heading into black townships. But even this was hardly novel when, a couple of days later, we saw a police convoy headed through a pretty dodgy area of the city with almost exact replicas of the armored car in the museum. Hardly makes it a museum piece.

Admittedly, they did try to do some stuff to help us experience apartheid such as allocating badges to denote race and segregating us for the first 15m of the museum -- except they ran out of badges. Oh well…

Still, if you really feel you need to get out of the house, it's a place to go.

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Photos

Looking for arms
There is an optimum window of opportunity between taking photos and keeping arms attached. I think I got it here.

Comic book giraffe
If you are looking for inspiration for comic book characters, Africa seems to be the place to go

Meerkat
One of the attractions at the park. There was one bunch in a cage and several others just wandering around wild

Mark with his new girlfriend
None of us was so rude as to point out that this giraffe was actually a bloke

Lion in the grass
This fella was wondering around looking for photographers with arms out of windows

Comic book lion
This guy seems more of a caricature of a lion than the king of the jungle

Lick me
These lions have pretty decent length tongues

Comments

[Shelley]

So? How DO those caged African lions differ from their caged counterparts in Australia? Loving the entries, Peta-shi! Adam and Randall are in town. We had them over for dinner last night and reminisced about the good ole days in Korea. Lots of Peter stories to tell-miss you, mate! Shelley xoxo Keep the stories coming! PS getting hitched July 30th. Any way you could swing up here? Ottawa has caged lions too and they are far more interesting.

[AnnaAdventuring]

Oh wow! This is where I worked! Great to see more pictures of the animals. The white lions are not albino by the way. The white fur and blue eyes is caused by a recessive gene much like king cheetahs or black leopards. Nice snaps! :D