Adventures in Mexico: The Zoo

Sorry to do several postings back to back, but I need to get out some awesome pictures! And I also apologize for them being kind of long. I had a lot of pictures to show.

On Saturday, we went to the Yaguar Xoo, or Jaguar Zoo in English. It's pretty close to Oaxaca, about a twenty or so minute drive out to it. The scenery on the way there is beautiful. Because Oaxaca is in a valley, there are always gorgeous mountains to look at marvel over. We were not super excited about the zoo because we had heard some less than glowing endorsements from another couple who didn't seem to be too impressed. But with our standards set low, we ventured into the zoo. It's privately held and managed, and it is much different than in the States! The enclosure aren't as far away or quite as secure as some I've seen in the States, but I still had no concerns about animals escaping and chasing me or anything dramatic like that! Our first stop was the camel, zebra, and bighorn sheep enclosure and then the ostrich enclosure.

They had some pretty interesting cactus fences.
Of course there were also normal fences as well.

We think the ostrich may have had something wrong with it.
It didn't look like it was doing too well.

Then came the lion enclosure. I wasn't able to get many good pictures from the chain link fence side because the lazy lions were on the other side of the enclosure! So we went near the concrete fence where they were laying, hoping to get a candid through the holes left in the concrete. Yes, there were holes in the concrete where they kept the lions. And yes, you could fit a hand through them. However, none of us were brave enough for that, so we settled on trying to put our cameras up to the hole at weird angles to possibly see the sleepy lions. Then an idea struck: We could boost Sandi up to use her long arms to take pictures through the chain link fence above the concrete! Brilliant. Unless you're the one doing the holding. Yours truly got that job. 

Tiny hole = difficult pictures

We should try out for the US cheerleading team or something

Check out our mad skills

Supposedly the pictures Sandi took turned out relatively well

I just ended up with shoe prints on my hand

After the lion escapade, we headed off to see the other animals. Cute little monkeys, a raccoon (I don't think those are exotic back home, but they evidently are here), a crocodile, several bison, a jaguar (Jaguars are sacred to some of the local indigenous people, they sometimes worship them as gods), and other various and sundry animals. It was lions, tigers, and bears, oh my!

The cute spider monkeys

The crocodile. He didn't move a whole lot, so we kind of thought he might be dead.

The poor little howler monkey. He looked kind of sick.

The Bengal tiger

The jaguar pacing while waiting for lunch

The bison

The pecari which are sort of like wild pigs

The ocelot. He was really pretty.

The white tiger. All the big cats were very lazy and did not pose well for pictures.

Yaguaroundi, which looks sort of like a cross between a ferret and a mini jaguar.

The pretty jaguar

A coyote. Evidently these are exotic here too.

The Siberian tigers were also ridiculously lazy.

After checking out the cats and monkeys, we moved on to the safari portion of our zoo adventure. It was a rather limited safari, but it involved feeding the camels, and getting some awesome pictures of the camels, zebras, bighorn sheep, and the one homicidal wildebeest that they had sequestered in it's own cage. It had killed a zebra about eight months ago, so they had to keep it away from all the other animals.

About to start our safari adventure!

The bighorn sheep

The homicidal wildebeest

Feeding the camels

This camel surprised Liesa by coming in for a sneak attack behind her.
She was slightly startled by it.

Sandi feeding the voracious camel

We then proceeded to bears portion of our zoo wanderings. They had a grizzly AND two black bears! The poor grizzly was all by himself though. All three were really cute and relatively small for being bears.

The black bears

The bears getting dinner

The adorable grizzly bear!

After the cute bears and their feeding, we were told that they were about to feed the lions! Since we missed out on good lion pictures earlier because they were really lazy, we were really excited about the prospect of good pictures. We got a little more than we bargained for. After the head zookeeper explained a little bit about the lions and their feeding habits, he asked us to split up into groups. There was a school there, so there were a bunch of kids. We ended up being in the first group with another family because the zoo people wanted to keep the school kids together. As we walked to the enclosure where the lions were, the zookeeper made a crack about this first group being the appetizers so the next group wouldn't have to worry! We didn't know that we were about to be really, really close to the lions...

We walked up to the gate, and then they opened it and motioned us inside...

We didn't know we were getting four feet from the lion while he was eating!

The zookeeper letting the lion into the feeding pen

The zookeeper about to start feeding Clarence the Lion

All in all, it was a fantastic day. I did not have high hopes for the zoo, but I was definitely proven wrong. Seeing how creative He is was a wonderful reminder of how He is able to create things that I cannot even imagine, including my life and all the events that have and will occur in it.