This place is a zoo!

Me with my favorite animals right outside the entrance to the zoo

With only a little over two weeks left in Mexico, Danny and I are attempting to cross off a few remaining activities on our bucket list. Yesterday, we spent the day at the Guadalajara Zoo, doing just that. Since we are both huge animal lovers (and I had heard you could hand-feed giraffes!) we figured it would be a great way to spend a Friday. Moizes bought a new car while we were gone over the Semana Santa holiday, and ever since he's been offering to chauffer us around whenever we need to get somewhere that's not walkable. It's MUCH more pleasant than a smelly taxi ride where you usually end up having to haggle with a less than amiable taxista for an unfair fare (see what I did there?).

We arrived around 10 am right when the zoo opened and bought the "paquete completa" for 145 pesos, which gave us access to all parts of the complex including the safari (we fed carrots to giraffes!) and the aquarium (jellies and a shark tunnel!). Moizes warned us to get on the train as soon as possible to take you around the zoo because it fills up quickly and the zoo is quite difficult to walk in its entirety. However, after reviewing the map, we realized we could just take the train to the far end and make our way back to the entrance, stopping along the way to oogle the animals. The train ride was actually pretty awesome because the train tracks wind through, or atleast close to, several major animal exhibits and you could get a really close view of the animals as well as figure out which ones were a "must-see". As we exited the train at the final train station, this gorgeous view greeted us:

Hello beautiful!

The land on which the zoo is located has a beautiful view of the canyon and I would have gladly paid 145 pesos just to see this alone. After taking in all the beauty we could stand, we headed off to see all the lions, tigers and bears.

White lion (I think the sign said 1 of only 25 in captivity, but who really knows)

Walking around the zoo wasn't too bad because, unlike the zoo in Asheboro, NC near where I grew up, there are animals to see every hundred yards.

Like this white tiger.

 They're also kept in smaller (but big enough) areas so that you can actually, ya know, see them instead of staring out into a large field squnting to catch a glimpse of an antelope. Luckily, we were there during the cooler part of the day, so the heat wasn't too bad either. Most of the animals seemed to be taking it easy in the shade and weren't super active, but still really fascinating to see up close. I'm not sure if it is due to the time of year, but a lot of the animals (the monkeys especially) had babies and it was fun to watch them playing with/pestering their parents. There were also random gorgeous peacocks roaming the grounds and Danny snapped a few candids of this guy while we were in the rainforest area:

Did you think this was gonna be a white bear?

After the rainforest animals, we started to make our way towards the entrance for the safari ride. After waiting several minutes in line, a huge zebra-striped jeep/truck/safari-mobile pulled up and about 30 of us hopped aboard. The man running the tour (who was dressed in what one can only assume was the zoo's idea of authentic Masai garb) passed out handfuls of raw carrot to everyone. The safari journey made it's way through a make-shift African plain. 

Sweet Harry Potter hat, nerd. 

They had ostriches, rhinos, zebras, and antelope all hanging out together in one large area. The truck passed by in close proximity to the animals and they seemed pretty unaffected by our presence. That is, until we entered the giraffe area. As soon as the truck neared the giraffes, one very large giraffe instantly recognized what was about to happen (I guess once something happens about 30 times each day, they catch on) and started almost trotting toward the truck. Ofcourse, all of the passengers went crazy and started holding their carrot-filled hands out to the giraffe's mouth. 

Me included.

Danny gave me his carrots, insisting it was way more fun to watch the look on my face as I fed him. He was quite "toothy" 

After the safari, we decided to check out "Monkey Land" which was pretty much every bit amazing as it sounds. Each group of visitors entered inside a large area surrounded by nets. As you entered one door, the other was closed behind you to keep the monkeys in. They had lemurs (with three little babies hopping around!) as well as baboons and squirrel monkeys.

The squirrel monkeys were by far the most entertaining as they had a little rope obstacle course in their area and they had no fear of humans. They even jumped on the rails to get closer to us and some people even held their arms out for the monkeys to climb on (I overheard a zoo worker saying that if they got bit, it was their own problem).

Might've been this guy.

I can haz?

Danny and I both agreed to have one as a pet one day and it was clear he could have spent hours in Monkey Land. And I could have spent hours watching him spend hours in Monkey Land. 

Who's a happy guy?

Afterwards, we checked out the aquarium which was small, but a nice bonus considering it was included with our package. We petted some manta rays and then walked inside to check out the fishies.

They even had one of those cool water tunnels you could walk through while little sharks and tropical fish swam overhead. Neato. If you're ever in Guadalajara and have some free time on your hands, the zoo is worth checking out. I'd go back just to touch the monkeys again. But maybe that's just me. Hopefully next weekend we will make a day-trip to Tequila to visit some distilleries.

Hasta la proxima!