The deep tissue massage hurt so good. I could feel the knots on my bones being worked out until they were no more. At one point, I fell asleep because I was so relaxed, and was startled awake when I realized someone was touching me and nearly kicked the massage therapist. My life is embarrassing (but awesome).
Today, Laura took Michelle and I to the Ukutula Lodge (http://www.ukutula.com/) where they protect, raise, and research lions and various other wild animals on a large reserve. Ukutula means "place of quiet" in Zulu, which is one of the local languages of South Africa. The lodge serves as a "place of quiet" for lions and other animals. Lions are nearly extinct because of Tuberculosis and Feline AIDS and this reserve is entirely disease free. Also, it's the first place to discover the gene associated with white lions. Apparently, most white lions you see in zoos or other places are actually Albino lions and white lions are incredibly rare (it's a recessive trait). They noticed that when two of their lions mated, they had white cubs, and researchers from around the world worked to find the gene associated with that trait. It was an incredible facility.
When we first got there, was just walked around the facility and a braai was going on. A braai is the South African version of a BBQ. We also saw baby warthogs who were running around the lodge. They were so ugly that they were cute. We followed them around and got many a picture. I was mostly concerned with giving the little guys mohawks with their back hair.
So onto the non-nerdy, fun stuff.. the first part of the day we got to cuddle with baby lions. The youngest one was 20 days old and the oldest one was a couple of months old. They were incredibly adorable and cuddly. One of them fell asleep on my lap, it was the sweetest thing.
They also had the sharpest claws, even though they were so little. But any of the scratches were worth the cuddles. They also had some that were a little older that you could hold and they were more playful. At this point, I wanted to take a baby lion and a baby warthog home with me.
After the cuddles, we moved on to seeing the grown lions in the facility and our tour guide was Sparkly (yup, that is his name), who was incredibly knowledgeable - he's how I learned all of the above information! He told some very corny jokes to pass the time when we were walking. On this tour, we saw Felix, the oldest lion in the lodge, Vincent, and several other lions and their prides. We also saw tigers and hyenas, who urinate, defecate, and drink from the same water source (it was algae green, of course). Probably won't be taking one of those home...
Then, we got a chance to play with the Devils, who were the older lion cubs. They were between 3-6 months old and definitely started to resemble grown lions a lot more than the babies. They warned us before we went into the enclosure not to kneel down too far or the lions would see us as a target and attack our head (lions go for the head of their prey to kill them quicker). I have to be honest, these guys scared me a bit more than the babies, just because they already had decently sharp teeth and claws. All in all though, they were playful like kittens basically, and if they did snap at you, you would just pop them on the nose and they would stop. They really liked belly rubs - it was so adorable!
After the Devils, we got to take a walk with full grown lions along a trail on the reserve. The lions just walked along the trail with us and were completely unrestrained. We had 4 male lions with us that were between 1 and 2 years old and two lion trainers who were incredible. They are seen as the alpha males of the territory, so the lions listen to what the trainers say and even looked to them before continuing along the trail. I walked probably 1 foot from a lion.
At the end of the day, we went to see the baby lions for a little longer and even got to meet baby cheetahs. They were far less cuddly than the lions and really liked running around and playing.
Needless to say, it's pretty hard to beat the experience I had today.
PS - props to Michelle and her fantastic photography skills.
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