Best Zoo Trip Ever

I am always very interested in going to zoos in other countries.  A lot of people might think that this is silly, because zoos usually house animals from all over the world, so how do they really represent and reflect the country they are in?  Well, the zoo in Budapest does a wonderful job in supporting my hobby of visiting foreign zoos: what we take for granted as proper zoo care and behavior is not the same everywhere.

The other week ago Bill and I had the afternoon free, so we went to City Park in Budapest (which is a big public park that also houses a zoo) and decided to visit the zoo.  Within minutes of sitting down to enjoy our picnic by the bird and turtle pond, I was shit on by a bird, TWICE!  Rather than getting upset, we laughed it off and shoved my head into a fountain to clean up and moved on to other parts of the zoo.

Now we get to the good stuff.  There is an exhibit that is supposed to represent the central/south American rainforest, and in it they have iguanas and sloths.  The animals aren't exactly enclosed, so they walk onto the path that the visitors use. One of the sloths was extremely active and moved his way to the visitor path, and plopped down.  We took quite a liking to him, and named him Ignatz.  Right as we were leaving the exhibit, we see Hungarians petting and rubbing the sloth (as if he were a dog).  At first I was horrified, and then I realized Ignatz actually liked it!!  So clearly we went back and took our chance at petting a sloth.

Ignatz loves Bill

Just hanging out and loving life

 Later in the day we go to see the prairie dogs. In most cases I would walk right past the prairie dogs, but I was startled when I saw there was red all around the mouth of one of the prairie dogs.  At first I thought it was blood, and then I looked into the habitat and saw a huge, half-eaten beet!  I literally looked at this little prairie dog and couldn't stop laughing for a good 10 minutes.  Whenever I want a good laugh, I just think Beet Mouth!



Our last stop for the day was the indoor primate house.  Before walking into the house we saw movement behind the glass door, but couldn't tell what it was.  Then as I am just about to walk in, I see a lemur standing on top of a glass display case, and the first thing I think was, oh no, the lemurs got out, what if we aren't allowed to go in?  We go in anyways, and notice that the lemur exhibit is in the middle of the room, and it is completely open.  The lemurs were intended to walk freely.  At one point we actually saw a lemur looking through a glass wall and into one of the monkey habitats (unfortunately we were so enamored we didn't think to take a picture). The concept of the zoo really has been revolutionized in Budapest.