Lion and Cheetah Park

The name says it all. The last I had visited this place was well over 10 years. Things change in ten years. But not my passion for animals.

So it began with a ride through the park. Just an ordinary drive through the 'Lion Drive'. How amusing can it be, right? I was told there were around 7 lions in total on the particular drive; around 2 to 3 males and the rest lionnesses. The car windows were up, and there's a a male lying around less than a metre from the car as soon as we enter the gate. How welcoming. I have to say, lionnesses look utmost majestic when they sit high above on the boulders. Even though the males give you this look of 'I'm all this, and I'm all that', I suggest you do not mess with the females. We reached the end of the drive fairly quickly, even though the times where the lions looked at us for fractions of a second seemed like time itself had frozen. In conclusion; for the most vicious predator in Africa, lions sure as hell are lazy.

And at the park what more friendlier way to be greeted than by a 300 year old tortoise. This trooper probably remembers me when I came last (perhaps even my great grandfather). We walked around the park, only to see more lions, and here I'm thinking 'hmm, I wonder how strong those fences really are'. Now my cousins had last visited the park when there were two small cute baby cheetah cubs. Unfortunately we met the same two a few years later, only to be snarling at us, striking offensive poses. Bad children! On NatGeo cheetahs seem like the coolest creatures; don't go blowing their own trumpets (like a certain 'maned' creature we met earlier) and they know they can catch up to Usain Bolt on steroids. But these ones seemed a bit moody. After mingling with baboons, hyenas, jackals, crocodiles, pigs, and horses, I was fairly glad with my day. Until my cousin told me our next stop was a place known as 'Snake World'.

Now I love snakes. I find them to be the most interesting creatures on Earth. But I fear them as much as I respect them. And all for good reason. Our guide Abraham guided us through a variety of different snake species. NEK MINNIT I happen to find myself holding a snake. NEK MINNIT the same snake is hung over my shoulders. Felt kinda tingly. NEK MINNIT we're face to face with a King Egyptian Cobra, waiting for the glass pane between us to disintegrate before it struck us with its venomous bite. Thank god for wishful thinking. And if that wasn't enough, how unsporting of the great Black Mamba to just rest while we stared at it for minutes, like little kids frozen at the sight of lollies they want....OK, bad analogy, but hey, what else can you do to an aggressive 4.3m snake that can strike faster than we can blink, injecting two drops of venom that can put to rest a fully grown adult in less than 30 minutes, reaching top speeds of 19 km/h? Luckily for us, this host was a wee bit tired.

So it was fantastic seeing my first experience of these animals after ten long years of a wait. But my quest for animal rights carries on, trying to give a voice to these creatures that don't have one. I thought hard about why the world is coming to the way it is for some of the most beautiful creatures. And I came up with this.

'Most of the animals don't attack unprovoked. Most of the animals are not evil, but only misunderstood. Most of the animals live in a circle of life, only doing what they do because they NEED to do so. The rest, are the ones we see in the mirror'.