Lions and Tigers and Bribes, oh my!
“You want hold fox? You want hold baby chimpanzee? Baby lion?” Yes, yes, and yes! A resounding YESSSS!!! for The Cairo Zoo.
What can’t $10 buy!
To quote Dane Cook, “We’re going to Tarantino this one.” Four expatriates and I are standing in an off limits zoo area, three feet from a roaring, full-grown lioness that is clearly displeased with our presence.
The zookeeper subtly relates to us the price of the prized kitty cat, “$1,000 for you my friend.” Wow. There are not many places in the world where you can buy a baby lion, but my roommate, Pat, and I opted to skip the otherwise very tempting purchase.
It was a long day, so I will start from the beginning. The Friday began as most do in Cairo: closed shops, little traffic, and Friday prayers. While not the most conservative country in the Middle East, Cairo still shuts down on its Sabbath. Most of the population, including Christians, takes the time to pray – or at least relax.
A few friends and I decided that there was no better time to hit the zoo, infamous for its stuffed animal enclosures and deplorable conditions. Five of us met at the local café, had some seriously strong coffee, and headed down to the metro. The subway took us as far as Giza, where we then hopped into a Cairo taxi, which is basically an old, Russian taxi taped, bolted, and glued together.
After paying our eighty cent cab fare, we walked up to the pandemonium that is the entrance to The Cairo Zoo. Picture a quiet day in the park. Now throw that image out the window; think hordes of sweating people cramming the lone ticket window to purchase entrance tickets. Upon entering the zoo, however, one steps in to an alternate, distinctly non-Cairene (Cairo) universe. There are trees, animals, and open space, all rare commodities in the city. The zoo is a favorite weekend picnic spot for Cairo’s middle class, coming to hang out, eat falafel, and relax with friends. We, however, came to see the animals. And see the animals we did…
The first stop on the zoo tour was the fox cage, where we quickly befriended a zookeeper eager to give us the V.I.P. treatment. After scoping out a rare, African fox of some sort (and paying a bit) the zookeeper posed the question, “Do you want to see the baby lions?” After brief negotiations, we headed out with ‘Masree’ (lit. Egyptian) to check out these lions.
Cairo’s animal collection is surprisingly impressive – cheetahs, leopards, lions, rhinos, zebras, hippos, birds (mostly pigeons), monkeys, and, of course, Camels. After hurriedly passing these we arrived at the lion enclosure, which is basically a 19th century US enclosure, transported to Cairo. The conditions are pretty abysmal, but the animals are well-fed and appeared healthy, although clearly disliking their cages.
After a little negotiation with the lion-keeper we were ushered into a back area housing five lions, two of them being approximately three months old. The keeper had clearly been through the you-pay-me-money-and-I-let-you-hold-lion exercise before and was soon scooping up the cubs. While we didn’t buy the lions, we did have the chance to briefly hold them before returning them to their mother, who was quite perturbed.
Anyway, that was the highlight of the trip. The monkeys were great (when are they not?), and we took many a picture posing in front of the hungry, hungry hippos. Kudos to the Gilman scholarship for the check that made this encounter possible, I’m telling you guys, check it out – more Cairousities to come!