The New Valencia Zoo

The zoo is very newly opened — just a month before this I think. It still had the feel of a very new place: trees not grown to fit the space, insufficient signage and direction, lots of employees standing around seeming to be unsure of what they should actually be doing. But I thought it was a very enjoyable zoo, which some nice get-close features, and I think once they get into the swing of it (and the trees grow a bit to provide more shade!), it will be a good zoo. On the plus side: it’s smallish, definitely walkable with a 3 year old.

And in the end, this was the only picture Chris took of Ruby’s new top that turned out at all. It’s hard to tell, but there’s a cute little ruffle in the front.

Bright sun, pale skin… bad pictures on my part. Even this one didn’t really work out: it was supposed to juxtapose the girl (er, I mean, knitted item) with the flamingos in the background. As it is, all you can see is blobage.

So the lemur area is completely open, and you just walk through, right past lemurs sleeping in bushes and trees. I could have pulled this lemur’s tail if I wanted!

Yup, not a 500mm lens here… this was a 50mm lens! I was right next to this thing!

These were the cutest, all cuddled up together.

This was a very crowded nook here, with everyone trying to look at the leopard, so it was hard to take any picture let alone make sure that C was being photogenic.

The restaurant had a deck that looked out onto this open grassy area with animals roaming around. Chris said the lady lion was being cute, rolling around in the grass and such.

They are over there under the canopy. It was really quite close to that giraffe. Pretty neat idea for the cafeteria to be so much a part of the zoo action.

I don’t really know why C and that other boy are holding out their hands. I think C was doing it just because the other boy was.

So, there it is. The difficult to photograph top. I think the straps had stretched out a bit by this time. I should have blocked it first!

After lunch we continued on the circuit, seeing some smaller african animals like this turtle.

We were on a path at the backside of the giraffe area. The path ran along a hill at the back of the enclosure, so you were pretty much at eye level (or a little higher) with the giraffes. It was awesome!

That’s just not an angle of a giraffe that you see very often!

It was so little and delicate! Look at those poky little antlers!

And he always walked around on his tippy-toenails! Must be a mountian-climber-type.

I always think it’s neat to see a few different animals together (of course when there’s no danger of “when cute little antelopes attack”.)

There was a bridge to cross over the rhino area, so you could really see them pretty close without danger of being gored/trampled.

If you look at the full-size image, you can see how the horn really is made up of matted hair. If I ever decide to go for dreads, I’m going for the rhino-dread.