First Animal Park - Imiri

We were invited to go along with some friends of ours to an animal park on Halloween. We decided to go, since there weren't any Halloween festivities that day, and we had a fabulous time! The pictures will show you how close the animals were to the trailer we were on, which pretty much they were almost right in there with us.

This animal park is only an hour and a half away so we left at 8am and got there for the 10am ride. It was a tractor pulling this long trailer with rows of seats on it. I joked with my friend that we were actually doing a hay ride on Halloween just like we would do in the States! When we got into the park they let us know that we would see 4 of the BIG 5 (elephant, lion, water buffalo, rhino and leopard), there were no leopards on this trip.

The first stop were the lions and hyneas. It was incredible the size of the lions, up close you could see how massive their paws were, and also when they fed them how powerful their jaws were. They are magnificent creatures, and could become my favorite very soon. When they brought the food out for them to eat we did get to hear a little growl from the lion and a little laugh fromt he hyneas, which was funny.

Next we saw some rhinos. No not this rhino....

This rhino!!

Grant it at this park there were not very many animals just a few of each so they had some guides (guys with guns who yelled at them) to bring them to us wherever we were driving. Which is kinda sad, but if they didn't do that I doubt we would have seen anything, because it was on 4500 acres. So back to the rhinos, they were great. A baby one came up to the trailer and our friend was getting a picture of Spencer with it when the baby rhino went to the front of the trailer, so he would be in the background. And then while I'm watching her tell him to "lean out farther" I see the other rhino coming right at Spencer's head!!! I should've taken a picture, Tyler says, but I was trying to save my baby!! :) The rhino got about 3-5 feet from Spencer's head before I pulled him back in. It was kinda funny.
Next we saw some elephants and a little baby one, all I could keep thinking of was Dumbo. Baby elephants are just TOO CUTE!

Then we kept going and saw some impala, a huge python, warthogs, giraffes, crocodiles, huge lizards and zebras. The zebras were gorgeous too.




Can you spot the giraffe?

Can you see the three impala?

When we stopped for lunch they had the rhinos come eat in front of us too, and then the elephants walked right through camp and sat in front of us while we finished. Then we got to FEED THE ELEPHANTS!!! YES!!!! Actually put food into their trunks or mouths. Of course, the one I went to go and feed wanted it placed right on their tongue, I wasn't too happy to do that so I just threw it in and continued taking pictures of Spencer and Tyler. Whom both LOVED this!
Last thing we did was go see some water buffalo, and as we start seeing some coming over this hill, we see something else with them. An elephant?

Our guide told us that this elephant since the age of 2 months or 2 years has thought she was a water buffalo. She has hung out with them and has become the leader. Since in elephant herds the matriarch is the leader she thought she should be, but with buffalos it's the patriarch who is the leader. Well, to fix that she killed off any dominant males who were trying to get that position! Crazy, huh? She has changed the way she communicates so then not to attract other elephants, because she doesn't like them, she really believes she's a water buffalo! And she understands what the buffalo moo and they understand what she grunts. It was amazing.

End of the day we got back to the lodge and started home. We haven't had much rain yet, but we saw this bad boy on it's way. Beautiful!

Oh and right outside of Harare there are these rock formations. Now how do you suppose that happened???