San Diego - part III

A nice lady on the bus told the family in front of me that they should go straight to the pandas when they arrived at the zoo, as the babies are usually on show in the mornings, so I decided to follow the advice. And sure enough, when I reached the Giant Panda enclosure, there was Yun Zi, the newest member of the Zoo's panda family, aged 6 months (I think!):

Adult Giant Pandas leave scent marks as news bulletins for other pandas: "this is my territory", "I'm in heat", or "I'm a good-looking guy, come and get me". Okay, only males leave that last message. And when they do, one of the ways they show off how great they are is by doing a headstand, so as to leave their scent as high up a tree trunk as possible (thus demonstrating how big and strong they are). Well, Yun Zi is already practicing for that moment... although when I visited he was still at the stage where the headstand turned into a somersault as soon as his feet left the ground:

After gawking at Yun Zi for a suitable amount of time, I went on to explore the rest of the zoo. It has some really nice enclosures, including a huge pool for the hippos, where you can even see below the water level to watch them when they dive. Of course, when I was there all the hippos were lying happily behind some logs at the far end of the bank, enjoying the sunshine... even though the water did look inviting!

'Polar Bear Plunge' I suppose must be based around the same kind of principle, but it was being remodeled, so I didn't get to see those bears, unfortunately, although I have to say the enclosures for other bears, and especially the accompanying information panels, were rather good.

There were a number of other interesting things, including harpies, birds of paradise, and an enclosure with otters, monkeys and buffalo, but the professional photographer wasn't there so the evidence is somewhat dubious... And there were also little things that reminded you what country you were in - like coin-operated automatic foot-masseurs and escalators in the steepest areas...

When I was beginning to head towards the exit, I saw a wombat! Unfortunately, the battery on the camera had run out by then, though... :s I suppose it might be an excuse to go back...

And that concludes the (belated) report on my trip to San Diego - hope you enjoyed it!