Saturday was our first day off campus and with no work to be finished. We loaded up in the NTC van and our student driver, Francois drove us to a Lion Park about 20 minutes away. Many of the girls had heard that we were going to be able to pet a lion cub so they had already begun preparing plans for getting "lion scars" that they could take back to San Diego and share. We arrived at the Lion Park and purchased our tickets and began walking around. We saw cheetahs, hyenas, and all different colors and sizes of lions. Soon after we were allowed into the lion cub area to pet and play with them. After that we continued walking around the "zoo-like area" and saw ostriches and warthogs, but no giraffes. We came by the ostriches and saw the "giraffe feeding stand" where you could climb up and feed them, but sadly they were gone at the time.
We finished touring the "zoo area" and came back to the "curio shop" and bought snacks to hold us over. I had sparkling fruit juice in a can and the most amazing candy bar called a "P.S. Bar" which was made of caramel covered wafers. We loaded back into the van and drove to the "reserve" area where the "big animals" were. Long story short--it was amazing! We saw dozens of lions and came close to several of them. We were amazed at the loud volume of a few of the lions that were roaring.
After passing through gate after gate of protected lion area we finished and then drove about another 1/2 hour and went to a "Lion and Rhino Reserve." This place was the real stuff! This reserve was enormous and was home to lots and lots of African animals. Where do I begin? We saw more ostriches, in fact it seemed like everywhere we turned we saw more of them. We drove by and saw antelope, elands, zebras, "wild dogs," hyenas, cheetahs, rhinos and of course lions. Probably the most exciting part of the day came at around 2:00 p.m. when we watched as the animals were fed in the "lion and predator park." We drove up and watched as two guys in a white pickup truck drove around feeding the animals. They began with the wild dogs and were dropping parts of a full on cow off the back of the truck. We watched these ugly creatures devour their lunch and then drove on to watch the rest of the cow be fed to the cheetahs. These animals were hungry and you could tell. They went up in to the back of the truck and tried to take the food. During this whole time we were driving from large caged area to large caged area while we watched the lions follow the truck along the fence numbering around two dozen of them. This was the grand finale. We all were talking about "how in the world the lions would eat the cow without attacking the two guys in the truck when they got out to drop the food."
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