We're in August, the month in which most of the people are traveling, enjoying summer and trying to recharge their batteries for another tough year. August is also one of the months that attracts the most tourists to family friendly places. A zoo is always controversial as holding animals captive is not ideal, but in a way it's the only place where you can see certain animals from close.
This week I made a trip to the Zoo of Marosvásárhely (Targu Mures), which is one of the biggest and most beautiful of the country. Animals are kept in good conditions, well cared for here.
The zoo is on a hill, above the city, well guarded by the tall trees that have been standing there for centuries. There's a bus ride from the city, or you can drive if you want as there's a huge parking lot at the top. There was a crowd as always and there were a lot of foreigners as well. I know quite many travel there just to visit the zoo as it's an unique experience, especially for kids.
Right at the entrance, these two solid guards are keeping an eye on who's entering. These two have been there forever, but the animal park is renewed all the time, new animals are brought and better conditions are created all the time.
Fun fact, they want to make the park interesting and educative as well, for the younger generation. Speaking of interesting, there are these small chariots available for the kids, that are not only environmentally friendly (no pollution here), but a lot of fun as well. These are free to use and kids love it. Trust me, you need one, if you go with kids as the park is huge.
At first sight, this may looks like a simple filagory, a place to rest, but it's more than that, has a long history as it dates back to 1950 and I'm glad it has been preserved.
There were these banners all over the zoo, trying to make people aware that they need to change, not climate. You could scan the QR code on the banner, which took you to https://climategame.eu/, where there are a lot of cool projects.
Now you may wonder what these are for. It's a simple thing and should be tried out, but I saw only one girl brave enough to do it. It's for your foot health. How? You take your shoes off and walk barefoot on the logs, sand and rocks. Once people did not have shoes and everyone was walking barefoot. Now we have a bunch of shoes to choose from, one better than the other, or, one worse than the other and a bunch of health problems, like foot pain, spinal cord pain, lower back pain and so on. Many come from using the wrong footwear and having weak muscles.
I was pleased to see the insect hotel was still there, among with the bird houses and this new thing, made of cans.
Let's go to the monkeys! They have a special place all for themselves and there's this board on the wall, where you can read about the species they have.
The place has a very tropical look as it has a glass top and there are palm trees inside, which is not common in Romania. The climate is too cold, so they would not survive the winter. There were a bunch of African violets, extremely tempting for me, but I wouldn't dare ...
Here's the Mantled Guereza. I can officially consider myself lucky as this was the first time I could take some half decent photos of the monkeys. Before this, every single time the monkeys were much faster than my camera speed and the photos were always disastrous. I'm not saying these are good, but at least you can see what I wanted to photograph.
The Japanese macaques were busy grooming each other, they couldn't care less about visitors.
And there was this little fellow, the golden-bellied mangabey.
Some were outside, but these were difficult to photograph as you're not allowed to go close for security reasons. Not that they would hurt you, but some people don't understand or don't want to understand what Don't feed the animals! mean. Giving bread to them, which contains yeast, or salty biscuits is not something anyone should do.
This part is a new addition and quit an interesting one. You can get close to the ring tailed lemurs.
This is still a cage, but a way bigger one, in which everything is made as natural as possible. There are these Flintstones style benches that I loved a lot. Very natural and original.
There was this wooden structure which basically is a playground for the monkeys.
The railing is also made of wood.
The beauty of the place is that these ring tailed lemurs are walking freely withing this huge cage. Visitors have their path marked, you're not allowed to jump the railing. The ring tailed lemurs are allowed to walk everywhere. They were friendly, but not to the point to let visitors touch them.
Most of them were hanging out on this tree, looking down on visitors.
I was really happy to see these monkeys from so close. These were pretty calm and not the cheeky ones that steel your belongings in a split second, or attack you to get the food from your hand. Food is not allowed in by the way anyway.
I hope you liked this zoo tour with me.
If you're a newbie, you may want to check out these guides:
