Driving with animals... Safari experience!!!

I love visiting zoos. Whenever I am in a new place, going to the nearby zoo is always on the priority list. My love for zoos started with going to the huge Alipore Zoo during the winter holidays in Kolkata. Alipore Zoo is the oldest zoological park in India. I understand the controversy of keeping animals in cages but well-maintained zoological parks and safaris are a great way to study animals and breed them and many of today's zoos hope to stop or slow the decline of many endangered species.

One of my favorite experiences has been visiting the Lion Park in Johannesburg, South Africa. We spent a night in the park and stayed in tents at the campsite. It was an amazing experience to see zebras and giraffes roaming free outside our tent at night and hear the terrifying roar of lions while sleeping. We got to drive through the entire park in a caged bus and saw all the animals roaming around our bus. It was an unfamiliar feeling... people in a cage while the animals examined us. Another high point of the trip was petting lion cubs... especially for someone like me who is usually scared of dogs! I also got a glimpse of lion feeding where a park worker got down among a group of hungry lions and fed them horse meat. Seeing multiple majestic lions running towards food and tearing it away is not a sight you would easily forget!

Petting lion cubs!

The most recent experience I had was visiting the Lion Country Safari in Loxahatchee, Florida. It was a drive through safari and the rains also paid a visit making sure that it was a romantic drive! The park is divided into sections modeled after various famous national parks of the world like Kalahari, Serengeti, Gir and so on and each section had animals peculiar to that park of the world. An accompanying CD described the animals as we drove through the section. It's not everyday that a rhino decides to cross in front of your car or a lion runs alongside your vehicle in the rain. I clicked away happily as the husband had the unenviable task of driving at a snail's pace.

After driving through the park, we sat in on a session of animal feeding where the trainers brought out various animals and birds and showed them off. The Macaw was the biggest hit with all its imitations and its beautiful red color.

This was a bit of my zoo experiences so far and there is a lot to come as Miami Zoo and Sea Aquariums are still on my list!