Garden-Now-Zoo

Now we are counting in days. We are somehow at 10 when we started with more than 100. And despite the dwindling number we are simply going to bed early, sleeping in and reading most of the days. We did wander to a garden yesterday and found ourselves there for hours as it was actually a zoo. As you get to be face to face with the animals and pass them items off the ground the first few seconds of looking at each one I was filled with happiness. Seconds later though, the horror of there living conditions that make you able to get so close set in. And, it is scary. The cages were in general semi-dirty and 1/50th of the size they probably should be. And with the sheer quantity of animals from all over the world that this garden-now-zoo had I can't imagine they did a great job of keeping up with the needs. Anyways, once past the moral part I had a great time. There was a slew of toucans (who were just as colorful as the fruitloops toucan) who I successively passed leaves to, and I actually got bored before they did. A monkey also played a little game of tug-o-war with a stick and a giant tamir stuck his gnarly tongue through a fence for us. I stared at a towering emu inches from me and it bat its eyelashes endlessly. There was everything from raccoons to peacocks to a dozens of types of chickens and bunnies. The zoo also attracted some of the elderly white people from the area and one couple left us in disgust when they chuckled to us "we live here, we just don't speak spanish." Yikes.

Well, we have done the calculations and we are down from 15 weeks to 2. It is hard to be sad about coming home, seeing everyone and celebrating Christmas. Especially when we have been seeing Christmas decorations since when we arrived in September due to the lack of Thanksgiving and Halloween down here. Our style of living- roughly deciding on a place to go and going, unpacking, adventuring, meeting people, seeking out where the 5 cent cookies are, packing, and leaving people who we then sometimes will see later has been a lively twirl of time. Luckily we are just letting this go for a month and then it will all begin again in a similar manner in Southeast Asia, which makes coming home pretty easy in the end.

On another note... A few days ago we spent the day swinging through the jungle, thanks to Alan! It was a very professional canopy tour in which we had 4 guides for the two of us and one of them acted like the paparazzi the whole time which took the first 30 pictures to get used to.

By the start of the safety reassurance session and guidelines I had a smirk on my face and my eyes were about to roll. I was halted when I tried to put on the harness by myself. And with the instructions that were all about breaking, keeping perfect form, and no twirling because you might hit a tree I couldn´t help thinking ¨fuck this, I will spin if I want to!¨ ¨common do I really have to break?!¨ and ¨guys, guys, the biner in your safety demo is cross-loaded!¨ But, once on the canopy this was all clearly worth putting up with. Also, after we passed the only exit point at tree 6, twirling and last minute hazardous breaking began and never seemed to be a problem. Beyond this, I send you to the pictures that can show you much more than I can describe!

Pictures 13

The tarzan swing at the end

Giving Zoe a hug as she buzzed down the last cable

By request of our personal photographer...

More tarzan swing!

Cruising at 40 to 60 km over the jungle

Probably attempting and failing to grab a plant along the ride

Coming in for a landing

Hanging on the edge of a platform