I made a trip down to Ethiopia in eastern Africa and went to the city of Harar.
Harar was probably the highlight of my entire trip to Ethiopia as it was such a beautiful city completely surrounded by walls.
While I was there I got to feed very hungry, very wild hyenas, some meat on a stick..... with my hand...(which is still intact by some miracle haha!)
Legend has it that in the 1960's farmers from Harar started to feed the hyenas some kind of porridge on the hill so they wouldn't eat their livestock and children. (which was a real concern at the time)
At times when they didnt put out food, the hyenas sometimes tried to dig holes under their homes to try and get in to eat their children.
Now the locals feed the hyenas outside the walled city of Harar religiously every night.
Make no mistake, these hyenas are wild and roam freely, but judging by the fact that I have both of my hands today as I write this, I'm sure they have some sort of 'treaty' with the locals as long as they keep feeding them
It was too dark to take a better picture but there are about 20 hyenas surrounding me in this photo, you can actually see their eyes glowing in the dark behind me!
Ferocious but beautiful creatures!