Trip to the zoo

We took a family trip to the zoo on Saturday.

The Jos Zoo is right across a small street from the museum, where there was a wedding taking place. So the zoo was crowded with visitors, and it was hard for us to find a place to park. But we found a place and entered the zoo. The entrance fee is only N50 for adults (N20 for kids), which is less than 50 cents. But they charge N200 if you want to bring in a camera. Fortunately, we've done this enough times to have known that ahead of time, and I took in my camera.

When we first go in, we pass through a turnstile and then walk across a narrow plank bridge that always makes me nervous. First we see the crocodile, then the tortoises. Then the baboons, chimps, lots of other monkeys... On the left are some ostriches and then a pen for gazelles. But we don't see any gazelles--just a donkey walking behind the gazelle pen. We pass the lion cage on our right, but we can't see the lion well. He's sunbathing on top of a heap of rocks, so all we can see is his mane. There's a walled pit where the boa constrictor lives. He's curled up on top of his thatched hut, fast asleep, and a yellow-and-black lizard is relaxing on top.

In the very back of the zoo, there are a few cages with birds, including a caged area with peafowl and its neighbouring swans. (David says they're a kind of duck, but there's no sign, and they look like swans to us.) There's a break in a fence, and we see a horse (Hausa, doki)munching grass on the other side. Dad sees a camel way back, but I can't see him. While we're snapping the horse, a roaming donkey comes up to us and sniffs the horse. Luke's terrified of the donkey, and when Dad picks him up so I can get a photo, Luke screams to be let down again--which makes the rest of us laugh. It's a donkey, for heaven's sake! (Hausa, jaki)

In other other cages are lots of other monkeys and birds. We see another donkey in a pen. A young girl follows us around with a bucket on her head. In the bucket are some bean cakes; Dad thinks they're like Nigerian tofu. We don't want to eat any (not sure of the sanitation anyway), but Dad buys one to feed the monkeys. One of the chimps even does some "dances" for us after we give him the food. Our last stop before we leave is the hyena enclosure. We can see one hyena only. Luke says he doesn't want to get too close, and Dad remarks on the cage wire. The squares are a good 5" by 5", quite large enough for a hyena paw to get through!

All in all, it's a fun trip, with lots of pictures I put on Flickr. Not quite like my trip to the San Diego Zoo a year-and-a-half ago, but, hey, this is Africa!