Harnas Foundation, north of Gobabis, Namibia, Dec. 12 to 14, 2011

 [ok everyone.  the computer thinks i'm in Israel writing in Hebrew.  so just read this backwards because I can't figure out how to change the format.]

We will backtrack to fill you in on other adventures we had before Harnas, but would like to jump to the present since we have access to internet for one week.

On Monday, December 12^th we had a long drive to a very special place.  Harnas is an organization like the SPCA except they don’t take in dogs and cats, but lion, leopards, vultures, cheetahs, carcals, monkeys and other wild animals along those lines.  They take them in because they were house pets but people weren’t able to control them, or they found them in the wild and they were injured. 

Harnas is a 10,000 acre farm with different enclosures where they house the different animals.  There’s the main reception area which is green grass with turtles and mongoose running around (in the turtle’s case, more like crawling).  They also have a few enclosures around it which include crocodiles, cheetahs, chacma baboons and hyena. 

They use eco-tourism as a way to fund their operations.  We camped at one of their campsites and then took a tour of them feeding all the big cats in the morning.  They also had an afternoon tour which we took the next day.  It was mostly of the baby animals and animals which aren’t particularly dangerous. 

In the beginning of the baby animal tour we went into a courtyard where they had some parrots (with which I had a conversation in “whistle-nese”),  a blind monkey, some ducklings, BIG dogs, a baby springbock, and all sorts of other birds. 

The highlight of this part was that they fed the wild mongooses by making a trilling noise so that they would come and then have pieces of meat in a tin that they threw in different directions.  There were about 200 banded mongooses and it was really interesting to watch. 

We then walked down a pathway to some of the bit more dangerous animals.  They had a cage with a vulture and ground birds or birds that were damaged and couldn’t fly.  They fed the vulture (I think it was a Cape vulture) a couple of pieces of meat and asked if anybody else wanted to feed it.  I said “I would” and they let me feed the rest of the meat to the vulture.  After I had stopped feeding him meat, he proceeded to bite my thumb.

In the next cage (that we also went into) there were about 4 carcals including a blind one.  Carcals are big cats that look like a cross between a cougar, a lynx and a spring (because they can jump up to 14 feet).  The carcals were used to humans enough that you could pet them. 

We then walked through to the next cage which had a pair of baby leopards, but they still weren’t that small.  Their mother had been killed.  Have you ever been hugged by a leopard?  For me, it was definitely a first, and hopefully a last.  It’s very unnerving to have an 80 pound cat that could eat you, no problem, clinging to your waist from the back where you can’t see it.  His claws were retracted so he didn’t scratch.

Next they fed the wild dogs intestine that were really stinky.  We were also in with them which was a scary thing, but they weren’t very threatening since they already had food.  Following this we visited the bat eared foxes which were very cute, except they were kind of mean (except for one tame one who was scared of the others and let us pet him). 

Afterwards, since I asked the tour guide, Thomas, I got to go into the monkey cage  [“How appropriate,” comments Elizabeth].  The monkeys immediately proceeded to climb up my leg, jump on my head, and chew on my ear.  The monkeys have very sharp teeth if you didn’t know.  If I was offered the chance again, I’m not sure I’d go into a monkey cage any more. 

When we were driving in to the farm, I saw a zip line that I thought would be a lot of fun, so afterwards I went out and tried it.  The zip line was extremely hard to get up.  You had to hold on to a rope attached to the zip line, run, have your arm pulled out of its socket and climb up two pieces of wood that were in an X shape at 45 degree angles while getting splinters the whole time.  It was definitely worth it though.  The zip line drops very steeply, then straightens out, still going down, and to stop yourself you put your feet in front of you like you were sitting on the floor, shooting a dust cloud in front of you.  It is extremely fun and I want one like that at my house.  I later found out that it was built for monkeys. [“How appropriate,” comments Elizabeth]. 

Merry Christmas to everybody from Livingstone, Zambia where we are staying with a great family who have 3 kids my age.