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.