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Published: February 8th 2009
Flamingoes
Noisy buggersOk, I'm rolling 2 days into one here as I think it will be better. The first day, we went to San Diego Zoo which was superb. We were lucky as it was mid week and it had been raining in the morning which put off people from going, however, it was busy enough for my liking. We walked in through the entrance and it was split into 3 main sections with loads of footpaths in between, so often, you would go back on yourself to get to another pen. We went straight ahead, drawn mostly by the noise as it was the flamingoes section and they were making a real racket! Obviously something was cracking off in there - the main troup of them were squawking and flapping their wings, but a small group of them were just ignoring the others and standing in the sun soaking up the rays. We wound our way along the path past various monkeys, aviaries (these were HUGE with whole trees in them and waterfalls - like minature rainforests - in fact the whole zoo was like walking through a rainforest (except for clear paths, signposts and cages but the lush vegetation, dripping with
Tigers
Yes, there was some glass between us. the recent rain certainly helped with the impression)), alligators, hippopotamus, orangutans, wild boar, turtles, tigers, elephants... I could go on but you get the idea. It took us a couple of hours just to get to the other side of the zoo and then we got a cable car ride across to a section we hadn't seen. Whilst walking past a pen which held several types of birds, it had started to rain and there were a load of herons perched randomly over the place - they looked just like the vultures in the jungle book - was just waiting for them to break into song "When I see an elephant flyyyyyy". The most memorable animals were the polar bears - I mean, how often do you seen polar bears close up? (and apparently, the weather in California is like the summer climate in the arctic so they can cope just fine - said on the sign there!); the koala bears as they looked all sleepy and cuddly, and the gorillas in the way they walked on their knuckles and seemed so chilled out! We must have spent over 4 hours there and still didn't see everything (notably the Pandas
Gorilla
Did you know that the species name for Gorilla is "gorilla gorilla gorilla"? How inventive... - although Paul tells me that the Panda scene in Anchorman was filmed in L.A so I felt better after that).
The second day, we went to a few different parts of the city. First stop was La Jolla (pronounced "La Hoya") which was a really pictureesque part of the cost with sandy beaches interspersed with coves, rock pools and rocky outcrops. We passed a small bay which had a lot of people, standing, looking down. Well what's the attraction here? There's just a bunch of rocks? Then I look closely - seals! Apparently it's pupping season and folks were watching the little things wriggle about on the sea shore, although they didn't really do much when we looked over. We walked along and noticed a strange bird (no, not a seagull, before you say). Similar to a pterodactyl in the way it tucked it's head in to it's body when it flew (I'm an expert in airborne dinosaurs you know), maybe a member of the pelican family (but a lot smaller beak)? Anyway, they were more interesting to watch than seagulls, which is what mattered.
After the scenic shots were taken, we headed to a place further
south but still along the coast called Mission Bay. It was far more "holiday resort-ish" with fairground rides, stalls selling henna tattoos & T-shirts and lots of eating places, although as we were off season, it was pretty quiet. It also had a couple of those wave riders which surfers can practice on - quite impressive! We watched them for a little while before walking a bit further along the promenade. Oh, update on Paul's hair - the toner thing worked but when he goes in the sunlight, it goes back to the straw colour he wants to get rid of so he'll be using blue shampoo for some time (it counteracts the brassiness).
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