Safari Day 6 - Amber & Arthur

Highlight of the day: Walking with lions as they stalked a group of horses.

Another early start this morning. We packed up our tents and set out for a full day's drive northwest to Gweru, where we arrived in the late afternoon at Antelope Park. This is a 3000 acre game park outside of Gweru in the Zimbabwe midlands. Our tents were pitched on the grass right on the edge of a beautiful lake. In addition to the campsites, they also have lodge accommodation, a restaurant, volleyball court and a swimming pool overlooking the lake (also right next to our tents). It's a gorgeous place, and we were excited to learn we'd be spending 2 nights and almost 2 full days here.

Antelope Park's main function is to breed lions and introduce healthy ones into the wild. They have lions for breeding, which are closely monitored to prevent viruses, illnesses and familial breeding. Once their cubs are born, they are all moved into a semi-wild 'enclosure' of thousands of acres where the adults can raise the cubs with no human contact. At the right time, the cubs/young adults are taken away and released into various gameparks around Africa. They are also active in breeding the rare Cape Lion, of which there are supposedly only 18 left in the world. Despite there being tons of different activities available to do (including elephant riding, safaris, horse riding, boat cruises, canoeing, swimming with elephants, and game viewing) we decided to spend all of our time with the lions.

Our first encounter with any of the lions was on an evening walk with 2 of them, Amber and Arthur. The park has several lion cubs, from 3 to 15 months old, who go out on walks twice a day with humans. There are no leashes, and no collars. The cubs have been raised by humans, but are still wild animals. They see the humans as part of their pride, so usually have no problem when you're around...except of course if you start to lag behind! A group of about 6 people, plus the guide and a lion trainer gathered at the restaurant (free coffee, tea and juice any time!) for some preliminary 'rules.' Our guide, Wean (pronounce V-N), a cute South African guy, went through the basic rules. We were each given a stick, not to hit the lions with, but to use as a play toy. Being cubs, they like to play. We were also informed of the basic rules in regards to how to approach the lions and interact with them. Then, we set off.

The lions we walked with on this first excursion were Amber and Arthur, a brother and sister of about 15 months old who have an enclosure together. When we first set eyes on them, we could not believe how beautiful they are. Or how big they are for that matter. They were let out of the enclosure, and they passed by each member of the group before taking off in front of us. For the next 2+ hours, we walked around in the bush with the lions, stopping to pat them and play with them. It was so awesome to see these animals in their wild form, playing about in the grass, pouncing on each other, and even stalking a group of horses. Wean and the lion trainer had to go chasing after the lions to cut them off from the horses, so the cats wouldn't attack them. These two siblings are very sweet. Amber is gorgeous and Arthur has a lot of heart.They are mellow with the humans but very playful with each other, hiding in the grass for surprise pounces and rolling around together. Their fur is quite soft, and incredibly thick too. To crouch down and pat these huge cats on their bellies and under their chins and tease them with a stick is one of the most exciting things we've ever experienced. But the best part is to see them in their own environment, behaving just as they do in the wild.

Before we knew it, our walk was over and we had to take Amber and Arther back to their enclosure. We all entered so that they would follow us in and then closed them in for the night. By the time we got back to our campsite, we were full of excitement at what we'd just done. We had another fantastic dinner & beers by a huge campfire into the night before heading to bed with dreams of our new feline friends.