If you’re travelling to Africa to do a safari, you probably love The Lion King. Even If you’re just thinking about going on a safari in Africa you probably love The Lion King. If you have ever pat a cat…
Screw it. Everyone loves The Lion King.
So do we. It’s the best. The songs, the characters the stampede…okay nobody liked the stampede but don’t worry, when you go on a safari they do their best to make sure you stay out of canyons and really far away from one eyed lions.
To get you prepared for your eventual journey around “everything the light touches”, there are a few things we thought you should know…
1. Simba, Nala and Mufasa will literally rip your face off
This isn’t the movies. This isn’t a broadway play that is better than the movie. No, this is real life and in real life Simba doesn’t want to sing you a song he wants to eat you. So stay in the car at all times and never, NEVER, bring up their father.
NEVER!
2. Slobbering mangey stupid poachers
Hyenas get a bad wrap. They look weird with their low bums and high shoulders, they probably smell really bad because they hang out with dead things all the time and from all the nature documentaries we watch they steal from the king of the jungle.
We’re here to tell you it’s all lies!
Look at this little cutie! Awww shucks! Hyenas can be cute? Heck yes! And they have an amazing social structure that makes a lion pride look like something thrown together by the boys from of Lord of the Flies. Their strong social bonds and family attitude is what keeps food on the table.
When you grow up to be this ugly you have to be good at something right?
3. Follow old Rafiki he knows the way!
Rafiki is a baboon, which means he has huge teeth, a weird butt and a HUGE family. Troops consist of about 30 members but can get as large as 200. 200 sisters, brothers, cousins, aunts and uncles all digging around for something to eat.
Sounds awful but having that many people around makes it less likely that anything with bigger teeth would ever come knocking during dinner time. Unless they want the full wrath of a male baboon who needs to support 200 relatives at once.
Yeah nah…
4. Mufasa’s worst nightmare…or wildebeest.
Ever been called a “horse-face”? Not a very nice thing to be called is it?
Unless you’re a wildebeest.
Poor ugly wildebeest. Not only do they look like mutant cows, they also killed our main man Mufasa. Can we ever forgive that?
Check this video out of wildebeest trying to cross the Nile River and tell me these guys don’t deserve a break.
More love for the wildebeest please.
5. Tonnes of fun
Crocodiles are scary, sharks are terrifying but the most dangerous thing that lives in the water is also…the fattest.
Hippos make us laugh for so many reasons.
This has to be the greatest thing ever filmed…
Yet they are no laughing matter. Hippos are territorial, which means if you get between them and a nice watering hole…trample city. So when you see one just make sure you are standing beside someone slower than you.
6. Long necked spotties
Giraffes are really tall. We all knew this. But did you know that their latin name camelopardalis literally means “Camel Leopard”. Why would we ever change this name to giraffe?
Camel leopard FTW!
Explore the Serengeti and find your own friends. These are ours.
Maybe you should tell us your own amazing animal facts in the comments section below!
