We arrived at the zoo via a dodgy route, having been caught out by ticket touts at the train station - we believed them when they said they worked for the zoo and then found out they were touts when we arrived at the turnstiles. How we fell for it I'm not sure as we're normally a lot more careful, but luckily our tickets were still valid. We were lucky I guess, given that the tickets had cost us £50.
The zoo is on the edge of one of the large reservoirs in the centre of the island so it is a beautiful setting. We were really impressed with the zoo. The only downside was the rainstorm that started just as we were off to see our last show for the day and didn't stop until it was time to leave. Rainstorms here are a major event by UK standards, I've not seen storms like it before, but they don't matter here - life carries on around it, with drivers still making it through flooding on the roads and people just donning raincoats or getting the ever-present umbrella out. Umbrellas are sold in more places here than even in the UK, plus you can get disposable rain ponchos at most places on the street. Unlike the umbrellas, which have the added bonus of becoming fashion accessories if you want, the poncho remains a purely practical item, making the wearer look a wally, especially if it is designed for a smaller person than the unfortunate westerner wearing it...
We saw most of the animal enclosures and even fed some of the animals. JP wanted to feed the white rhino's and I fed one of my favourites, the giraffes. There were two giraffes who came up for feeding, a male, Growie, and a female, Roni, and the male was a real attention hog, wanting all the food. To get so close to the animals is a really great experience and we both loved it, although JP teased me about being all starry eyed over the giraffes, hence the photo.
The night safari is basically a cross between a zoo and a safari park, with parts you can walk through and parts you take a tour through. There is also a live show with some of the animals and that was excellent, especially as some of the animals were playing up with their own idea of what to do. However, the best bit was when mid-way through the show, the keepers have to "find" one of their animals. They go out into the audience and go looking under the seats of some of the lower rows (we were up near the top of the amphitheatre). After about five minutes and getting lots of people to move out of the way, they "find" Maggie. Maggie turned out to be a python about 8-10 feet long and she'd been lying in a special box under some people's seats. I'm glad we were nowhere near, but I did have a furtive check of our seats to be on the safe side :)
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