A Brilliant Day At the Zoo
The Emperor Valley Zoo is Trinidad’s only zoo in the whole country and is situated in the capital city of Port of Spain. My girlfriend and I decided to quickly pay the location a visit one day as we were waiting on someone and had a lot of time to kill before they arrived. We ended up doing things that we would never have expected to have done ever and had the time of our lives! It ended up being so much fun that it became one of my fondest memories. It turned out, unknown to us, that there were a few things that were happening in the zoo that day that was not quite usual at all. I hope all the GIFs load here on #Hive!
We started out with all the usual animals on display like the lions, tigers and so on. I did not take many pictures of these as we were quite distracted and well to be honest, Trinidadian children have been coming to the zoo on school field trips all their lives and so by now we were quite saturated with these scenes. What we began taking photos and videos of though, were some of the birds on display such as the toucan that was quite playful and responsive! He was very polite and active!
There were also some parrots that were grooming and playing with each other in such a seemingly loving manner that we just had to stop and admire. They seemed like two love birds taking care of each other. Who knows, maybe that’s probably just how they are as a species characteristically but I could not help but juxtapose my human perspective of interpretation on their behavior!
There were also some warthogs that happily played in the mud! Two at the back were digging while the two at the front were joyfully rolling around in a muddy pool! It was quite a different scene to see animals within a zoo be happy and playful for a change. They were also playing with each other by seemingly jousting in the mud. I kind of wondered what the actual colours of their coats would be without all those layers of mud on them.
They zoo managed to bring in giraffes for the first time in the history of the country and it so happened that that day, an event was being held where patrons would be able to meet and feed them face to face! As soon as we saw the lineup of people and the signs, we immediately decided that this was not an opportunity to pass up! There in the GIF you can see me getting to feed one of them under supervision of one of the handlers. It was weird being face to face with something so large and its saliva got all over my hands but it was so exhilarating!
Weirdly enough there were also some random chickens running freely about the zoo, entirely un accounted for and unsupervised! It was so weird to see animals running around freely and we wondered if it was on purpose or if someone was about to lose their job!
Another event that happened to be happening that day was this huge inflatable slide was open to the public. It was so tall and huge and there was also a huge line for this as well. I was not even thinking about going even near the thing as I thought it was for children but I saw adults on the thing to my amazement. I still did not think at that point to try it myself until my girlfriend nagged me to go! Reluctantly, I did… BUT IT WAS SO MUCH FUN.
The flamingos were out in their numbers and I could not at all ever seeing them before here. Their enclosure was so nice and relaxing to look at with the running water and tropical plants that populated the open space.
By the end of it all we were so tired from walking for long long but it felt so worth it. It was such a great decision to check out the zoo that day. I actually got to see and feed a real giraffe, an animal I thought I might never see in my lifetime and we had so much fun sliding down a huge slide in a silly manner! What an adventure. I just love it when the best memories happen when you don’t plan them!