Day 43: Half way done

Zoo

Today it’s true, we are now longer on the road than we have left. I am sure that only through the finiteness, the journey is so interesting and valuable. And having 42 nights left, is still a lot, so no reason to be sad!

Enough of that, let’s get started with the day. Today was Zoo time, we decided to walk from the Hotel, even tough it was around 45 minutes each way. We adapted the American lifestyle in some parts, but we still love walking if possible :)

We reached Balboa Park pretty soon, were we saw the last preparations for the Pride Festival, which is this weekend. After that we crossed the bridge and were in the Museum Town.

Our intention was to arrive early at the Zoo to beat the crowd. Opening was 09:00 and we were there a little before 10:00. But there were already a ton of people, Saturday didn’t help us I guess.

But as the Zoo is large (Map), the people distributed well. We started with the Spineless Marvels building, where Snakes & Insects awaited us.

Really crazy was the Ghost Mantis, we were sure at first that it was just a leaf.

Then of course the large Snakes, they had a fully reconstructed Python Skeleton on display. Overall the exhibition was really nice prepared.

Next stops were Hummingbird habitat & Komodo Kingdom. The high speed Hummingbirds are always fun to watch. They feel so nervous with their nearly teleporting flying style. Fun fact, when we humans had the same energy output and appetite, a 77 kg person would need to eat 300 hamburgers a day :)

On the other end of the spectrum were the Komodo Dragons, slow and relaxed. But definitely majestic and impressive.

Then we passed the different Tortoises, which impressed us with their size (nearly 300 kg) and their age (can be more than 150 years old). We also saw some Gharials, which are related to alligators & crocodiles.

During the next part we spotted Tapir’s, Dromedars and also Lions and Tigers. But the cats are always hard to see in action, because they spent the better part of the day just lying around and sleeping.

In the end we spent almost 3 hours at the Zoo and would definitely recommend a visit. On the way back to the Hotel we had a small Lunch and a Beer at Panama 66. Food and beer was good, so we can recommend the place.

For dinner we went to the Old Spaghetti Factory (this time with a reservation, yeah!). Food was okay/good and price/value was good+, but as we had a craving for pasta, it was a good choice.

We then watched the last 3 innings of the Padres game, mostly because we knew that there would be a firework afterwards. But also a bit because we start to like them and the game ;-)

They won again and we saw a pretty impressive firework.

Pictures

Activities