It awaits you about 15 kilometers from Santander
The Cabarceno Nature Park has an extension of 750 hectares and is located on the site of an old open pit mining operation.
I must admit that before making this wild visit I had been to Cabárceno twice, a place that can boast an impressive karst landscape , but on neither of the other two occasions was I able to interact with the animals except for an ostrich, which took a fancy to my camera and he attacked her a couple of times . But this experience that the park has been proposing for some years now was totally surprising because I never imagined being so close to some specimens.
The visit is quite exclusive since it is only done once a day and a maximum of 4 people can participate. It is done with a jeep With which, in addition to traveling the 20 kilometers of road that crosses the park, you can access many places, including the bear enclosure, where, with our own cars or on foot, it would be practically impossible.
Stand up, brave!
The first area we visited was that of the African elephants and there we fed Cristina, a one-eyed pachyderm who was rejected by her mother and that she ate about twenty blocks out of my hand and without stopping. Although these animals seem friendly, do not be fooled. According to our guide, If you come across an African elephant, it will most likely shake you with its trunk. , step on you and finish you off with his fang so it is not advisable to get in his way.
Love in Cabarceno
The next specimen we saw was the rhinoceros who was held in a receptacle in which they lock him up to treat his conditions and where some lucky people like me were able to touch him and give him alfalfa to go-go. The rhinoceros is very impressive. Not just because he's fierce (there was a time when I remembered some catastrophic movie in which the animals drink magic potions, break the metal restraints that contain them and you have to start running like a gazelle if you don't want to end up in their jaws) but because it is a perissodactyl that many have slaughtered for its horn , which they say has aphrodisiac properties. I must admit that what most caught my attention about the rhinoceros is its skin, warm to the touch because it is highly vascularized , so they instantly notice when a mosquito bites them.
Zebras in Cabárceno Park
But the highlight of the wild visit was the jeep entrance to the bear enclosure while they feed them . Suddenly I could see how the 4 by 4 vehicle was surrounded by seventy plantigrades that I saw a foot away. At that moment the most cowardly They can guess what would happen if all the copies joined forces and attacked the jeep at the same time (unlikely). Well, security is more than guaranteed during the visit since, in addition to the 4 by 4, a security car enters in which the people who occupy it they carry shotguns with tranquilizers and projectiles as a last resort.
The tour also took me to see the giraffes up close, to which I was able to feed carrots, apart from giving me a lick as a souvenir. His saliva is stinky so I was remembering the lick for a long time.
Striped life in Cabárceno
This tour of Cabárceno also includes bird of prey exhibits (the feeling of having an imperial eagle on your arm while it stares at you with its beak two centimeters from your face is really priceless) and of sea lions . In addition, they take you to the enclosure of the grevy's zebras , a species in danger of extinction since it only survives in some natural reserves of Kenya either Ethiopia , and that of the gorillas.
The wild visit to Cabárceno lasts all day , approximately from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and includes entrance to the park and a meal in the restaurant The Bears . the price of the experience is 400 euros per car in which, at most, 4 occupants can go.
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