Aaah how do I start this blog session?

Well this morning Bill and I were having our usual skype session, planning and scheming about how to give people the ultimate wild adventures experience in Africa.

Suddenly a YouTube link appears and Bill’s exact words are: Please look at this - you will cry I did! With the crying face smiley next to the comment.

Now my immediate thought was: No I do not feel like being traumatised by emotional animal films right now. ( I was thinking in terms of Lassie Come Home which still makes me weep to this day.) I have a succesful day planned. You know what I mean.

Non the less after I finished doing what I had to do I sat down to watch the recommended Heart Break YouTube Video.

Firstly I must say the video is dated, old footage. But the content is incredibly touching.

In 1969 two gentlemen found a neglected Lion Cub for sale in London at the famous Harrods. They took the pitiful cub home, fed it, played with it, walked it and loved it.

But well lions get huge and I mean really big. Have you ever seen a real live lion? Picture your house kitty as tall as your car with it’s face as big as your car window. Imagine how many cans of food you need to keep it purring and cuddly.

So the only option was to try and make him wild again and return him to freedom in the plains of Africa.

This is quite an undertaking. Even though lions are huge and wild - they are quite easy to domesticate if you have them as a cub. Because essentially they are lazy. So if you can pander to their hunger well then you’re half way there to having a big feline friend. This does not mean you should under estimate the power of their swipes or bites. Just remember what house kitty does big lion does too. So playful can turn out deathly.

So teaching a lion how to fend for himself is the hardest part. To go out and make a kill so he can eat. Just like house cats - thats why it’s unfair to expect them to go and catch mice to fend for them selves if they’re used to getting designer cat food. Well mine think mice are for torturing and not for eating.

The 2 English gentlemen managed to get the lion to Africa. Of course there was only one man who can handle such a task. The true Lion King - George Adamson. (Sadly George Adamson was murdered by Somalian bandits in 1989.)

The most incredible aspect is that the 2 gentlemen that bought the lion out to Africa returned many years later to see how he was doing - and the lion remembered his saviors.

I defy anyone to tell me animals are not capable of bonding. Friendship comes in many forms.