Lost and Found

.......and picking up from where we left off.

So I hope you all enjoyed those cute little lions.  We sure did.  It was a fantastic day for sure.  We borrowed a car, courtesy of some generous friends here and we went off on our adventure, departing at the unheard of hour of 6am.  We had scheduled another activity at the park, called Walk with the Lions.  We were pretty excited about it and needed to be there by 8 am.  Unfortunately we got a teeeeeeeensy bit lost.  We ended up going to Pretoria instead.  I don't know if I can really explain without a map so...

Sometimes when you are in a foreign country and haven't driven on the other side of the road except once and haven't been to the place you are trying to get to and don't have a smartphone yet and don't have a GPS either people get lost.  Anyways, we all poured over the maps that the owner of the car had prudently left in the center console. (Except my Matt, who as the driver sensibly kept his eyes on the road and kept driving us to get us out of a seemingly not great part of town, while the other Matt, Margaret and I put our heads together).  And we did make it. Phew.  And on the plus side, I've learned I'm not interested in that part of Pretoria for my future touring plans.  

So grateful to see the signs, and the gate to our destination:

We did miss out on the Walk with the Lions.  Matt and I had definite plans of going again but we were sad that our friends missed it.  

However, the day was still a huge success.  First of all we had a nice rest under some trees with some iced tea.  Then we got ready for the main event.  

Ukutula is a place where you can stay over, play with lions, walk with lions and learn about the research they do with the lions.  Now, don't get the wrong idea about research.  They have the rare white lions there, and are learning about the gene that makes the white lions.  White lions are not albino, but just white.  Baby tawny lions have spots when they are born, baby white lions do not, which make them more vulnerable in the wild.  Ukutula also does research about feline aids and TB in cats.  Many of the lions in Kruger Park are actually sick, and they are trying to figure out if there is any way to help lions in the wild to be healthier.  They have many volunteers that help with the lions here too.  While we were there they had 3 different sizes of lion cubs we could interact with.  The babies, which you have seen...awww..I'll just put a couple more on.  They are about 4 weeks:

So sweet.

 A couple cubs were practicing their escape artist skills:

Made it over the fence!

      The staff said that they only climb out when they see their brothers and sisters outside the pen. When they are together then they don't try to escape.

Then we went to see "the devils."  They are named that because of their tendency to make mischief.  (After they grow past that phase they go to the pen where they keep lions to walk with.)

Look at those paws.  This guy left Matthew (not my Matt, but our friend Matt) with a "Souvenir."

They can also be sweet.

The last set of cubs we got to visit were the medium ones.  Big enough for more play but little enough not to draw blood. :D  Check out the cuteness!

That cub is seriously smiling at Margaret.

That is one of my absolute favorite pictures of the day.  There was a cub there named Ella, she is a white lion. She wasn't born there at Ukutula but she is staying there for now.  She was unsteady on her feet during our visit and not very used to people, but she let us hold her a little:

Playing with lions makes me happy!

Well that was all for the cubs.  We had some more nice experiences that day, I'll share more later since this post is long enough!

(Sorry it's been so long between posts, it's just so busy here and this post took time because I wanted to sort though my pictures and share some of the best shots with you all.)