I Think I’m Turning Japanese
Day 213
These are the sort of days that one needs while travelling, easy and relaxing however they don’t exactly make for enthralling blog entires. Jordana and I walked to the other end of Palermo to meet Eli and Bronwen at the zoo. The soon sounded interesting since it contained some buildings from the early 1900’s. Plus I could finally see the difference between a guanaco, Llama and Vicuna, all side by side!
We found Bronwen and Eli waiting at the entrance to the zoo. We paid our $15 peso entrance and as soon as we entered we noticed something different about this zoo. Some animals ran free. Yep, some crazy looking (ugly) ducks were just walking around and Amares or Patagonian Hares were just walking freely as well. Not only that but you could buy food to feed animals. Mostly it was like any zoo, although a bit rough around the edges. Those historic buildings from the 1900’s don’t look like they have seen a new coat of paint since. We saw a few monkeys, chimps and orangutans. There was a shy black bear, a hot looking polar bear and some dusty elephants. Then was the guancos, llamas and vicunas. All in separate enclosures but side by side. I did it, I knew the difference between all three. I knew I had gained some knowledge of South America over the months of travel here. I left the zoo proud of my South American wildlife skills.
This side of Palermo is a huge collection of parks that include the zoo, polo grounds and even a golf course. Incidentally did you know Argentina has the worlds best polo players? They do, its a fact, well a fact according to Footprint’s South America Handbook. Anyway, the area is very beautiful and included in this area of parkland are the Japanese Gardens. The gardens are beautiful and besides the spanish being spoken you could have been in Japan. We strolled around the gardens stopping on the bridges to look down at the massive koi below. Some are pretty nasty looking fish. When the fish didn’t entertain us the photo shoot with the Asian wedding couple did. Their setup poses by the photographer were hilarious. Feeling jealous Jordana, Eli, Bronwen and I posed for our own cheesy shots. The cheese continued when we found head cut outs of a giesha and samurai to pose in. Overall the gardens were a fun and relaxing end to the day.
We walked back to Santa Fe Ave. where Eli and Bronwen had to jump on the subte. This was goodbye as we were off tomorrow. Another couple whom we instantly got along with. It felt like we had been friends for years and both having apartments in the city for the last week has been great fun. We hugged and said our goodbyes and walked back to our apartment. After dinner we packed our stuff, went for one last walk in Palermo and went to bed excited about the flight to africa tomorrow.
Tags: Argentina, Buenos Aires, Japan, Llama, Zoo
Michael Coroneos
That zoo doesnt sound like Marineland now does it?! No feeding bears cereal???