San Diego Zoo

Location: San Diego, USA

Up early for this trip, we had read it was a massive zoo park and they weren’t joking. We left the hotel and got the bus to the zoo, really handy having a bus opposite the Sofia Hotel where we were staying. We got off the bus and it was a short walk to the zoo entrance, again thanks to the way the Americans appreciate the military Kenny got in for free and Sal got a cheaper ticket.

The zoo is split into several of different areas, there’s the Polar Rim and Elephant Odyssey to name but a few. We started in the Monkey Trail, we followed the path until we found a great enclosure with about 6 Orang-utans. Two of them decided it was too much for them and decided to have…. well you can guess what at the window with everyone watching.

Following on from the apes we wandered through a massive aviary and headed down a twisting path towards the Tigers. We found a Hippo and he was very happy just lying in his pool and getting out of the heat, the tigers were also just chillin out and happily posed for a photo. After the hippo was a large small monkey enclosure but they were being anti-social and stayed well away from us, moving on we found the end of San Diego Zoo. The Zoo is built on a hillside in a valley so you start at the top and walk down hill then the fun part of coming back up the hill, luckily on the way back up we found the Panda’s. They had just had a birth a few weeks before so the keepers were giving talks and keeping the crowd updated on juniors progress. We managed to get some pictures of the Panda’s having bamboo for lunch, and I suspect breakfast and tea is pretty much the same.

The ardvark and the wild dogs was next as we climbed a very steep and long walkway up to the Elephants, at the top of the hill we found Elephant Odyssey. The newest part of the zoo and home to several large elephants who are on a rotation with their sister safari park where they get more space to wander. Around the enclosure there are lions and various birds and a rattle snake who posed beautifully for a couple of snaps.

We made it back to the main entrance and took the bus tour around the park, it’s a big place and the bus was a blessing. Stopping at the polar bears enclosure we disembarked and had a look, one was playing in the pool and the other was being anti-social hiding at the back. We took the sky line (cable car) back to the start of the park and found all the snakes and reptiles before heading home after a full day at the best zoo we’ve been to yet.