South African Safari 2013: Better and Better

The days just keep getting better and better. Binette, the farm foreman, assigned us to clean out horse stables today. Sarah shoveled while David dumped the wheel-borrow.

Binette

Breakfast was simple. Cold cereal and fruit.

As a group, everyone cleaned the adolescent lion enclosure. For our sake, they sequestered the lions elsewhere while we were working, but we make quick work of it. 24 hands makes very lite work.

After cleaning up, we took the lion cubs for a walk. We're trying to train them to follow a person. This was not as easy as it sounds... even more if you think of herding cats... and the cubs decided to sit in the shade and play.

Lucy and David fed the cubs lunch today. The cubs are so funny when they're hungry. They meow like kittens... of course is more like MEOW! We can already see changes in their behavior. They are quickly developing personalities of lions and becoming aggressive. They won't be cubs anymore in a few days.

Off to lunch. Chicken burger and grilled cheese. Yum!

Cheetah walk today, Vicki, one of the owners, announced that we would be taking the two cheetahs for a walk. Because of their speed when running, we will be putting them in a large pen. The tigers, who usually occupy the large pen, will be off in a separate area while the cheetahs are free.

It was actually the coolest thing. We got to walk side by side with cheetahs. We can totally see a new opportunity for the Portland Zoo.

The cheetah walk didn't last long as they became spooked by the lions which were next door, so we put the cheetahs back in their travel cages and visited the lions in their enclosure.

A few days ago, just before we arrived there was an incident where two volunteers were locked in the lion area with the lions without a ranger. Fortunately, no one was seriously injured, but the two volunteers were still very weary of entering the enclosure, so we all visited the lions from outside the pens. The lions showed us their "funny faces." This is a face they make that resembles the MGM lion at the beginning of films... only with out the roar. That's dubbed in.

These lions are beautiful. They are some of the nicest and gentlest creatures. They are incredibly affectionate. However, if they get a sense, smell or even a taste of meat, they become quite dangerous.

We next visited the tigers, just to make sure they had their allotment of attention. These tigers are very used to people and are quite docile. Tame, no. Docile, yes. The two tigers had very different personalities. Kali, one of the tigers, was very talkative and wanted to show off her "chuffing." This is a sound that tigers make, sort of like sneezing.

To round off the day, we took the cheetahs in their cage for a game drive. The cheetahs love to travel in their cage, like going on a safari of their own. We drove around the game park and met up with bliss back, kudu and three giraffe. It was an amazing experience given that is was spur of the moment.