In another instance of “do as much as I can before I leave next week,” we decided to head to the Giza Zoo, if only for the reason of playing with lion cubs. Yes, with a little bribing (i.e. 10 LE) we can hold a lion cub and take photos with it. We also got to play with some monkeys and feed some other animals. Fun? Sorta.

For you see, the Giza Zoo is a place of utter horror by western standards for a place to keep animals. First, the zoo has very rundown facilities, no apparent maintence staff or upkeep, and the habitats for the animals are atrocious. Case and point: as we are walking along, we see a dozen or so lions being held in cages. Not in a natural habitat (or even an unnatural habitat, for that matter). Simply barred cages with loud music playing, kids screaming wanting to hear the lions roar, and in some instances, several lions in one cage. At one point, three younger male lions began pacing around inside their cage and – reminiscing about my Lion King days – looked like they were getting ready to attack. It was horrible. They simply don’t know how to take care of these animals.

Once we bribed the zookeepers to play with lion cubs, we walked back and saw caged tigers and the zookeepers did as much as they could to provoke them! Yelling, singing and poking fun at them, to the point of utter annoyance to the animals. I have videos but I can’t seem to figure out how to put them up on here, so go to my youtube site to view all the videos: http://www.youtube.com/somedude535http://www.youtube.com/somedude535

We walked around a little more, got mobbed by little Egyptian kids (and big ones too) and played with some monkeys before being disgusted enough to leave. I was appalled at the conditions but how often do you get to play with lion cubs?

It was incredibly interesting to say the least. Now back to studying! Don’t forget to check out my videos: http://www.youtube.com/somedude535.