11 Giraffes, and 3 Baby Lions...Just another day in South Africa

              We’ve all grown up hearing the phrase “Lions, tigers, and bears. Oh my!” That phrase has now transformed; bears have been replaced with giraffes. We made our way to Sea View Lion Park on a mission to pet a baby lion, a goal that simply had to be checked off our South Africa to do list.  King Cabs came through when Avis neglected to tell us they didn’t have a car available when we made a reservation the night before. When we came upon 11 giraffes in our path, we were quite glad to have someone else driving. Enamored with the awkwardly elegant animals in such close proximity, we took more pictures than necessary by far. After we had gotten our fill of giraffes, we walked through the park observing lions in cages, which I must say was a little less exciting than seeing them out in the open at Scotia Game Reserve. In the middle of these gorgeous native animals was an enclosure that surprisingly enough held two tigers, the classic Tigger sort. While they certainly aren’t native to South Africa, we enjoyed watching them prowl nonetheless. We were then taken to our final destination, the coveted baby lions. After picking out some fun souvenirs for family and friends back home, we bought the ticket to the cuteness.

Two of the lions were three and a half months old, the other five months. Sleeping was their activity of choice, making the prospect of being in such close contact with such a powerful animal a little less nerve racking. The fact that they were smaller than my brother Mick’s dog Grady also lessened the intimidation factor. But of course they weren’t to stay like that. The lion I was petting decided he would like to wake up and play and began to bat around at our hands and arms with his paw. The caretaker said this was perfectly benevolent behavior but when she informed us that we should bat him on the nose if he were to bite, I got slightly nervous. Inspecting the pictures afterward revealed that at one point when I jumped up a little at his first batting of the paw, he stared at my behind rather like it was a tasty morsel he would like to take a bite out of. (I’m glad I didn’t realize that at the time or I would have been out of the cage in a flash).  After a day of tall surprises and playful lions, we returned home with adorable pictures and an item to tick off our to do list.