Lions and Sphinxes and Bears, Oh My!

So, have I mentioned that I am writing a thesis? Well, this is what my thesis is about:


No, not pink tee-shirts! This sculpture is the centerpiece of my thesis. It is called Nahdat Misr (The Revival of Egypt) and was made in the 1920s by Mahmud Mukhtar, this country's answer to Rodin. I made the trek over to Giza today to photograph the behemoth and, while there, Number 6 and my Imaginary Friend (IF) and I paid a wee visit to the adjacent Cairo Zoo.

As Number 6 and I discovered in Tunis, zoos here in the Middle East are willing to let you play with their dangerous wild animals if you tip them enough. Tunisian zookeepers were nowhere so organized as the Cairene ones when it comes to profiting from this. Immediately upon entering the zoo, a man with a big camera approached us and offered to let us play with the lions. Who would say no to that?

Our cameraman/escort led us first to a little enclosure where a full-grown male lion was lounging in his cage. We were invited to crouch next to him and pet his mane. A bit of shampoo wouldn't have killed him, but I was most impressed by the size of his paws. The cameraman took our photos the whole time and repeatedly informed us that my camera was not allowed (his prints cost LE 20 each) but, as you can see, we ignored him.

We were then escorted past the cages of public lions to another private enclosure where two frightened looking baby (or toddler, really) lions crouched in a far corner. The handler there grabbed one and we were allowed to hold him in turn, posing for the cameraman and sneaking photos of our own.

Once we were all lion-ed out, the cameraman led us to what he called the Photo Shop and asked which picture size we would like to buy. He had promised that we would get to play with chimpanzees, but apparently before we could do that it was necessary that we lay down some cash on the over-sized prints, so we declined and slunk away in pursuit of bears. The first time I visited the Cairo Zoo (the Christmas before last), my parents and I were apalled to see children feeding giant black bears with a spoon. That is so unsafe! we exclaimed. Today Number 6, IF and I decided to test that theory.

Along the way, we came across the Reptile House, which required an additional ticket for entry (zoo admission is one whole pound, and it cost another whole pound to see the aligators and snakes - we decided we could afford it).
I guess since the rest of the zoo is so pet-the-wild-animals friendly, management felt compelled to remind visitors not to reach their delicious fingers into the aligator tanks. But that didn't stop a snake wrangler from placing this little cutie atop my head.

After he placed the snake there, the handler (who had a very nice mustache, as you can see) proclaimed that this was my crown of Isis and, indeed, many Pharaonic sculptures (including one Nahdat Misr) feature snakey crowns, but those snakes are generally giant freaking cobras. I passed on the man's offer to handle a giant python and we continued our search for the bears.

To get to the bear enclosure, we had to shove our way through crowds of onlookers and wiggle through the fence to the inner sanctum. Once there, the bear man gave us a spoon with which to feed rice to the giant animals and encouraged us to pet them through the bars of the cage.

If you are very brave, can feed the bear a date which you are holding in your mouth. Only IF was brave enough to go through with it. Apparently it tickled.

One curious thing about the zoo is the level of attention that we three recieved. This is nothing new - I am used to being stared at on the streets here - but you would think that lions and bears and zebras are more interesting than some random American women. You would be wrong. We had our photo taken on several occassions and various of our bodily parts grabed, groped and fondled. One guy was polite enough to ask us to pose for a picture with him, but I rebuffed him (and rather rudely too). It was nice that he asked without just taking pictures without permission like his friends, but very strange that he thought it would be perfectly acceptable to us to pose for snapshots with a stranger. You can take all the pictures you want with the zoo animals without asking them if it's okay, but, as I tried to explain to him, the fact that we are American does not make us another zoo exhibit.