Yesterday saw us take to the skies…twice, as we flew from Orlando to San Diego! Finally time to check out the West Coast! The flight was a long ordeal – made even harder by the fact that we had arrived home from the Magic Kingdom Christmas party at 1am and were back up and heading to the airport at 4am…GREAT planning! It was safe to say that we weren’t doing anything on arrival to San Diego – except catch the local bus to the Gas Lamp district and admire the Californian sunset!
Today was a different story – after a slight sleep in! We decided to check out the world famous San Diego Zoo – choosing to get some exercise and walk through Balboa Park form the hostel. After paying the hefty entry fee – we were blown away by the sheer size of the Zoo!
The ‘Zoo-Fari’ cable car ride gave a great overview of the zoo – as you ‘glided’ over the zoo in gondola type vehicles. Soon enough it was up to our legs to do the work as we hiked around the extensive zoo. Stand out exhibits were the whole ‘Rain Forest’ section with a great selection of animals from Gorillas, to hippos and crocs! On arrival to the Croc exhibit we were shocked to find that one Croc had latched onto and another crocs face – drawing blood. It certainly did not local comfortable and certainly not normal. It was confirmed that this was not a normal practice when two keepers rushed into the pen to ‘scare’ the crocs in order for one to let the other go! It was certainly not a normal sight for a day at the Zoo!
The reptile house was another amazing area – and proved once again to be perfect timing as we witnessed the keepers feed a cage full of snakes, with some live rats! What an amazing experience and made for some great home movies! It was amazing to see the snakes slowly ease the rats into their mouths to swallow them whole, then watching the ‘lump’ travel down the snake’s body!
We finished with another standout exhibit and yet even better timing in the newest section of the park – which looked at the animals that have existed somewhere in time in the California region. The perfect timing in this section began when the lion trainers presented the male lion with a new ‘toy’. The toy came in the form of a 40 gallon drum, which was VERY quickly destroyed by the powerful animal!
It was a great way to spend the day in San Diego – but sadly we didn’t plan on having enough time in the region – as we packed that evening ready to board a bus to Nevada. It was time to start our roadtrip.
