Hello Travelers !!!!
Today i will share with you my trip to San Diego ZOO. Me and my gf did this trip in 2019, so it is pre-pandemic. I miss these times...
So. San Diego ZOO is located in the Balboa Park, a quick drive from our hotel and it is an awesome place to visit. The zoo is huge and we've spent 5-6 hours there, so a love of walk under the sun and it was hot! Don't forget sunscreen and bring a hat, you will appreciate this tip :) Also, they have over 600 species and around 10K animals in total and are among the top visited in the world.
Entrance fee was around 55 dolars back then per adult and it includes only the 1-day pass, and the price is worth it. You can spend the whole day there as they have restaurants and snacks. Also a lot of places to seat and re-charge as you walk A LOT during the visit. Be prepared. The zoo was pretty empty during our visit with no lines at all.
One of the animal we were most excited to see was the Pandas as they had a dedicated space called "Panda Area". We walked through the area, but couldn't find any pandas and a zoo employee told us they had just recently moved them to a Chinese Zoo. Nowadays they changed the name of this are for Asian Passage. Quite a disapoitment, but there were plenty of other cool animals to check out.
I'm not a big fan of caged animals, but the way they treat the animals, run studies and share knowledge is amazing. They have a lot of respects for the animals and nature, and this should be the standard for every zoo.
Below I'll share some of my favorite pictures I took that day. Hope you enjoy!!
CHEETAH
It was really cool to see a cheetah so close to us. It kept walking from one side to another in front of us as if we weren't there at all. After a while of watching her she started to climb some trees and play around.
This was one of the animals with the most crowd around.
BABY DEERS (BAMBI)
This deers were very fun and cute to watch. They all seem like little Bambis from the Disney Movie. They run on a very clumsy way, so fun to watch. Probably one of the chillest animals on the zoo. They had such a big area to run around and play with each other.
POLAR BEAR
Those bears were HUGE! They are always under some shade or swimming around, but most of the time we were there they were laying down. At this moment of the picture he had just stood up and we got excited to see some action, but 5 seconds later he just layed down again on the other side lol So we decided to move on.
BOARS
Those are funny looking animals. They look like a mix of pigs and furry rats. They play around each other and keep moving all the time. There were even some toys on their habitat area and they kept moving them around.
We stood about 10 minutes watching them and each of them ate about 5 fruits! When we were living they went to their shelter and layed down for some nap time.
AIR VIEW
They have a cable car that crosses the whole zoo area and you can have a nice aerial view from up there. It is for free so we took this opportunity to rest a bit while enjoying the view and planning our next spots to visit. If you are afraid of heights this might be a bit of a tough adventure for you as the seats are open and the wind may make it swing a little bit. But definitely worth it!
TURTOISE
Those animals are increadible. They seem such peaceful and passive creatures, but once you hear and watch the sound of them crushing the food between their jaws you become a bit scaried of them lol We were lucky to get there as the zoo keeper was distributing their food around their habitat area. Once she entered their area all of them started moving towards her to receive the food, very smart!
ELEPHANT
I was excited to see elephants as they are such smart animals and so big! We spent around 20 minutes just watching them walking around and scrubing against everything they walked by lol We were able to see a zoo keeper showering one of the smallest elephants there and he was enjoying it!
HARPY
Watching this bird was the worst idea ever! Actually one of the worst images I've ever seen lol I noticed a little rabit jumping arount the Harpy's area and said to my gf "look, the rabit is his friend, awesome". 10 seconds later the Harpy noticed the rabit and moved towards him...it was terrible. They shouldn't allow kids - like me - around this monster. It was brutal. It destroyed the rabit in seconds and there was blood and pieces everywhere, so we just moved on quickly and traumatized. We were both silent for almost 10min after that.
CHEETAH + DOG
Once we left the Harpy area we came across this scene and feared for the dogs life. After the harpy scene we were not sure if they were real friends or just food lol We just watched in shock for a while hoping for the best, and man they were really friends just sharing the same habitat and walking around. Apparently this dog is from the zoo and plays with the cheetah since puppies. Incredible, isnt it?
RHINOCEROS
Another huge animal we got to see! Although there were a few of them on the habitat area they mostly kept alone by themselves around it. They don't play and don't walk too much. You can feel how powerful they are with their size and horn.
ZEBRA
I was looking for the zebras and found them, but they didnt seem excited to be there. They were all searching for some shade spots and there werent too many given the hour. I felt bad for them :(
ANTELOPE
Those were the also one of the chilliest animals we saw during the visit. They were just laying on the floor close to each other and looking around. I tried to get their attention, but they didnt seem to care at all so I decided to stop bothering them.
THANKS EVERYONE
Thanks everyone for reading. This zoo was an amazing place to visit with thousands of animals with even an insect area, one focused on spiders and this was really curious to see. Lots of scary and weird bugs there.
Hope you enjoyed as this was one of my favorites trips ever and I'll definetely visit again in the future!
