Friguia Animal Park and Zulu night - Tunisia

Our final trip in Tunisia was to the Friguia Animal Park with a combined cultural dance event and evening meal. 

We are a bit wary about going to animal places abroad now , after some of the things that we have seen  on our travels but felt heartened by the fact we were told that this animal park was helping with the conservation of animals. We also really wanted to go to the Zulu dance night and you couldn't do that without going to the animal place. 

When we arrived at the park we were giving just over an hour to walk around it which I thought wouldn't be enough, so set off with gusto determined I would see as much as I could in the time allotted. I didn't need to worry though as we had ample time with most of the group loitering at the end just waiting to go to the Zulu night. We even had enough time for David to go looking for a geocache  which was close by.

The park had the normal animals you would see. The pens and enclosures were clean but quite small and some of the animals had very  little shelter or vegetation to prowl through, hide in or to get shade from. 

David making friends with one of the sculptures. 

There were several tigers and lions. The white tiger above was just pacing along his fence but there was another tiger on the other side that it was keeping an eye on. In one of the big cat enclosures, in which there was only one cat being kept, I saw a keeper wandering around going up really close to the cat and seemed to be annoying it. He would tap it on the paw with his foot or bang it's empty food bowl in front of it, I wondered what he was up to and realised he was trying to get its attention so he could take a photo of it. Then I saw that he was charging tourists to take photos with their cameras, he actually wasn't happy with the money one tourist gave him saying it wasn't enough. Needless to say I didn't take him up on the offer. I wasn't impressed but I do realise that workers abroad often do not get paid very much. 

There were several porcupines in this area, it is the first time me and David can remember actually seeing porcupines in real life. 

A meerkat sunning himself , just out of shot of this camera another meerkat was pacing up and down the wall directly beneath desperately trying to interact with the tourists looking over. 

This is David rooting around for the geocache, how on earth we haven't been arrested yet I do not know! We must look really dodgy. At this point we were actually being watched by a bus load of tourists who had finished in the animal park and were desperately trying to keep warm within the bus.

Eventually it was time for the dancing and our evening meal.  The Zulu dancers were fantastic, full of enthusiasm, life and really made you feel like you wanted to join in. They came out several times during the evening and each routine was as good as the other.

There was another dance group there who were demonstrating other Tunisian style of dancing,including belly dancing. Oh my lord, they were dire. Each dance was basically the same and consisted of them walking aimlessly round in circles. Sometimes to make it different they would wave a handkerchief randomly to the music and sometimes even change direction in their walking ! The dancers themselves didn't look impressed and seemed embarrassed to be there. Honestly,  my dad could do better and he has dodgy knees, wouldn't want to see him in a belly dancing outfit though.

The lady above is dancing with several pots on her head, don't be too impressed they stack very conveniently on top of each other. It is probably still quite tricky and I couldn't do it but  not as impressive as it looks. 

The meal however was quite good although the portions were small, especially the chicken. 

The hotel we stayed at was all inclusive, it was the first time me and David had done this and we were impressed with the food and drink that was on offer. However they would insist on giving David his coke in a wine glass, that wasn't enough to wet his whistle!