My trip to Africa

On the 21st of July, Eric decided to leave me and go play in NY with all his buddies for Brett's bachelor party. Not wanting to be alone for a week, i called my mom and she decided it was the perfect opportunity to take her 3 daughters (me being the best) on a trip. She works at the airport so we fly free and can go anywhere on standby. We were going to go to Sea World and swim with dolphins because for the longest time, my mom has promised me that she will take me to do that. It has been a life long dream of mine. Unfortunately, Sea Worlds' dolphin swim was all booked. We decided to still go to San Diego and go to the Wild Animal Kingdom. We left Tuesday night and stayed the night in a hotel in downtown San Diego, right by the airport. The next day, we drove to the park. It was a lot of fun being with just the girls and even though my sisters drove me nuts, we had a lot of fun seeing some animals interact the way they did. For example, four lion cubs were born to the park and spent their days curled up on an old park jeep under a tree. The park has set it up so it looks like Africa. They have a big open field that they have adapted to be exactly like the animals' home. They use this field as a sanctuary for endangered animals. They have two out of eight of the white rhino that is endangered at this moment. Unfortunately, these rhinos are past the age for breeding so they are taking samples and freezing them in order to try to restore this animal. Most of their animals are there for this reason. In this park, the animals roam free and live as they would in Africa. You can take a tram around the park and look at all the animals or you can pay an extra fee and get up close and personal, like we did. My mom felt bad that we couldn't swim with dolphins so she booked us a tour that let us feed Giraffes. It was crazy! You get in the bed of a truck that looks like a covered wagon and drive out into the open park. From there, animals are free to come up to the truck and do whatever. Rhinos, for example, like to rub their horns on the truck to file them down. We had to keep backing away from one male rhino because he decided the spot to rub his horn on was the tire and we didn't want it to pop and be stranded out there. We drove a little further in and there, giraffes came up to the truck, knowing the routine and that they would be getting food. The tour guide gave us all a bunch of leafs and had us come up one at a time to feed the giraffe. We weren't allowed to reach out and touch the giraffe but it could do whatever it wanted to you, including drooling all over. It was amazing to be so close to such a big and wild animal. I fell in love with giraffes the moment i saw it. It's tall and lanky and awkward like me. It's eyes are big and brown and can see 2-3 miles ahead and they have a 360 degree vision. They are usually the cause of stampedes because they are obviously the first to see the predator and they begin running, which causes the rest of the animals to run as well. However, they don't run more than 25 miles per hour so they use they're legs as they're defense. They kick to protect their young and themselves. They have hoofs the size of a dinner plate and sharp all the way around. There have been cases that a giraffe has kicked a lion's head off for attacking them. Pretty crazy! The babies are born 6ft. tall (that's as tall as i am) because they have to be that tall to reach their mother's milk. The babies learn to stand within the first 9 mins after birth and walk in 15mins. It was amazing how much i learned and feeding this beautiful creature was an experience i will never forget! Thank you again mom! It was awesome!!!!!

p.s. Eric will write about his trip later though it won't be as exciting as feeding a giraffe. :)

The rhino filing it's horn on the tire.




















My cute mom and sisters when we first got there. I love them!














The giraffe drooled all over and it was kinda scary the first time.













My family and the giraffe, Bembei













A look at Africa and the animals roaming free. I love it!