All in all we drove to Cali and QuiQue wasn't even there. As soon as he was free of his shackles he went out. In his stead his daughter Jimena and her husband Alberto took us to a beautiful restaurant in the San Antonio (read:historical) district of Cali. Their goal was to give us a sampling of the typical comidas of Cali. Everything on the menu was fried and everything we ate was fried. Afterwards my stomach ached since eating lots of grease without a gallbladder isn't really a great idea.
The next morning David packed up the cousins and we headed to the Cali Zoo. Before we left Jimena told us that Cali's zoo was very popular and that it was a really great zoo, a sister zoo of the San Diego Zoo which as you know has quite a reputation (how many zoos can you put in a sentence). Therefore I was very excited. I've always enjoyed going to the zoo even though I'm aware that zoos are in fact jails for exotic and sometimes not-so-exotic animals. Seeing these beautiful animals in small cages when they should be roaming plains is sad. This I am aware of. I'm also aware that ocassionally without a zoo the animal wouldn't even exist anymore as the human species enjoys shooting things just because they move. So in a nutshell: off to the zoo we went.
A few observations: The Mariposario was nice because I've never been able to walk amongst butterflies. I've never seen so many parrots in my life and had no idea how big they get. I've now seen Condors up close and they are massive. In a Colombian zoo expect to see a buttload (a gross understatement) of monkeys and expect a monkey to wipe poo all over the cage glass until you can't see him anymore and expect for your reaction to be 'That's awesome'. Sometimes when you're drinking your bottle of water at a kiosk and a giant male peacock, intense colorful feathers and all, walks right by you it will be quite a shock.
This is until you realize that all the peacocks just strut along the pathways of the zoo like if they're just stepping out to run to the grocery store. A North American Grizzly bear should never, NEVER be in a zoo at the equator. An animal that is native to Alaska and other chilly temperatures should not be kept in an open air pen in a city that never drops below 85 degrees on a cool day. He looked like he was dying.
But one last thought on the Cali zoo. I understand that your expecations of how things work have to change when in another country but sometimes I think that there should be a standard.
I think that animal pens should be well caged and shouldn't literally be just a stone wall you can hop right over and walk up to, for example, a deer or llama (not that this happened while we were there but we just felt so... in the pen). But I don't believe they should be well caged for our safety (though that would be nice) I believe it should be well caged for the animal's safety.
There is obviously a lack of education concerning the welfare of the animals here. We're looking into the pen of a wild boar and while the wild boar grooms its wild boar buddy he nestles into a nest of potato chip bags. You have people banging on the window and disturbing animals instead of just observing them. You have people (gasp) feeding the animals pieces of empanada because they are just so close. There are no garbage cans along the walking path to encourage putting your trash anywhere but where the animals live, there are no signs saying how consumption of human food can really hurt these animals. All in all I found it really hard to believe that this zoo works together with the San Diego Zoo.
After the zoo we headed back to the house to gather our things and said goodbye to who we could find (QuiQue still missing). We headed back to Armenia to begin another week.
There is obviously a lack of education concerning the welfare of the animals here. We're looking into the pen of a wild boar and while the wild boar grooms its wild boar buddy he nestles into a nest of potato chip bags. You have people banging on the window and disturbing animals instead of just observing them. You have people (gasp) feeding the animals pieces of empanada because they are just so close. There are no garbage cans along the walking path to encourage putting your trash anywhere but where the animals live, there are no signs saying how consumption of human food can really hurt these animals. All in all I found it really hard to believe that this zoo works together with the San Diego Zoo.
After the zoo we headed back to the house to gather our things and said goodbye to who we could find (QuiQue still missing). We headed back to Armenia to begin another week.
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