Pop star Shakira attacked by Cape Town sea lion

Colombian pop superstar Shakira was attacked by a sea lion as she tried to photograph and pet a group of the animals during a vacation in Cape Town, she said Wednesday on her Facebook page.

"I thought to myself how cute they were so I decided to get a bit closer than all of the other tourists and went down to a rock trying to pet them, doing a baby talk while taking pictures," she said on the social networking site, in an account written after the Sunday incident.

"Suddenly, one of them jumped out of the water so fast and impetuously that it got about one foot (20 centimetres) away from me, looked me in the eye, roared in fury and tried to bite me.

Everyone there screamed, including me. I was paralysed by fear and couldn't move."

The singer, whose Waka Waka was the official song of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, said her brother, "Super Tony", saved her by jumping over her and hauling her out of the sea lion's reach.

She said she and her brother both scratched themselves on the rocks while trying to protect themselves, and posted a picture of a small scrape on her hand.

Shakira said she thought the animal had mistaken her Blackberry phone for a fish and gone after it.

The incident was not the singer's only run-in with wildlife during the trip.

She also said on Twitter that a baboon had jumped onto her car the day after the sea lion attack.

"Now I'm off to see some penguins! I hope they are a bit more friendly," she wrote.