A Trip to the Zoo

One of our top priorities upon arrival in Lima was to visit the zoo. You see, the LL has a book about a family of Humboldt penguins who live on the west coast of Peru. Given that we are now living on the west coast of Peru, she figured she would be able to see some penguins. While we do plan to make a trip a bit south to see where the penguins live on the ocean, We promised a trip to the zoo. We saw penguins and more.

The zoo we visited is in the Parque de las Leyendas, the Park of Legends, in Lima. It is actually one of two zoos in Lima. This is the public one and is also known as the more traditional of the two zoos. The other is private, with a smaller collection, but more focused on conservation. The zoo was about a 30 minute cab drive from our apartment, and it was still closed when we got there. Once we got in we found that the zoo is very, very large. It is laid out into major sections, with sections for each main ecosystem in Peru and an international section for animals not native to Peru. It was a sensible layout.

Water Buffalo

The LL wanted to see the giraffes first, so we headed that way, in the international section. Along the way we saw some water buffalo, and we must have stayed there for 20 minutes watching, as the LL was very interested in how they went in and out of the water. But we eventually did make it to see the giraffes.

The Giraffe Seemed a Bit Lonely

One of the really interesting feature of the zoo is that it is actually situated around a group of pre-Incan ruins. These ruins cannot be visited formally right now as far as I could tell, but you can definitely get a sense of the layout of some pyramids and ongoing archealogical work that is happening. It is pretty cool that they put this park here, as well as the zoo, in part as a mechanism for preserving these ruins and protecting them from development pressure.

A picture of some ruins

After seeing some big cats, including a white tiger, we made our way to the penguins, since they were the other main priority. The LL was very happy to see the penguins. Now she is looking forward even more to seeing them in the ocean when we visit Paracas (south of Lima) where the Islas Ballestas are found, which is a habitat for the Humboldt penguins.

The Main Attraction

Of course we saw a variety of other animals as well. Birds, including a massive condor, monkeys, reptiles, llamas, alpacas, and on and on. We thought this zoo was pretty nice. I wish that more of the enclosures were made with something other than chain-link fence. And it looks like they are moving away from that as they renovate. Some areas have been completely renovated and are very nice. Others are still sort of old-school. But, as zoos go, this was a pretty good experience. They had a decent restaurant where we ate lunch and headed home hot and tired. And it only cost about 3 $US per person, with the LL free. Hard to beat that.

One of the oddest looking birds I've seen - gallito de las rocas

Monkeys!

Never got a great look at the condor

What a friendly alpaca

The Main Entrance