Day 29 – Cali Zoo
We were going to get up early this morning to go to Cali Zoo again, but it was raining. Given our previous trip to the zoo was quite short, we didn’t get to see everything we wanted to, and I didn’t get to spend any time taking photos of the enclosures (as opposed to the animals themselves) for ZooChat. As a result, we had always planned to visit again – but then our court process finished about a week ahead of schedule and Leanne had been unwell for a few days, so we were running out of time. We had actually extended our stay in Cali especially to visit the zoo, so it was going to be disappointing to not be able to visit due to the rain.
We sat around most of the morning before the rain eased off a little and we could see the skies starting clear a bit in the distance. So we took a chance and packed our bags – then caught a taxi to the zoo, about 5 minutes drive!
Lizard up a tree
Leanne and Andres at Cali Zoo
The rain pretty much stopped within minutes of our arrival and we ended up with reasonable weather for the day – although it did become more overcast a bit later. It was also much cooler than our previous visit, which made it much more pleasant.
Leanne and Andres at Cali Zoo
Puma
We spent a few hours wandering around before stopping for some lunch – after which I did a quick turn around the zoo again to take enclosure photos while Leanne waited with Andres. After I got back, we decided to walk home rather than catch a taxi – it is pretty much impossible to get lost, we just followed the river along until we got to the hotel. It took us 40 minutes to walk, which includes waiting to cross some roads which didn’t have traffic lights which can take a few minutes to find an opening in the traffic. It is an easy walk, but tiring with me carrying all the camera gear and Leanne carrying Andres.
Hummingbird (wild) at Cali Zoo
Lion cubs at Cali Zoo
Just as we were crossing the footbridge to get to the other side of the river to where the hotel was, a guy walking in front of us stopped suddenly just before the end of the bridge and was looking intently at something near the steps. He turned to us and pointed – showing a small snake (probably less than 30cm long) hiding under a broken bit of concrete. I have no idea what type of snake it was or whether it was poisonous – and the cameras were in my backpack, so I didn’t get a chance to take a photo before it disappeared.
Leanne and Andres
We finally made it back to the hotel, stopped to have showers and cool down a bit, and then we got stuck into packing our bags ready to leave in the morning. It turned out to be a more difficult exercise than we had anticipated – even though we had donations for the orphanage and small gifts for some of the people who had helped us, we had souvenirs and gifts we had received to find room for, and the books that we bought proved to be really heavy – we knew we were going to be in for some serious excess baggage fees, and without a handy set of scales, we could only guess at which bags were the heaviest to try and even out the load.
Magnolia came by the hotel late in the afternoon to say goodbye, and spent a bit of time helping us book some accomodation in Cartagena. It is going to be sad to leave – Magnolia has been a wonderful help to us, she has helped many Australian families get through the adoption process and was able to give us advice on what to expect, and helped us ensure we had all the documentation and other requirements in place when needed.
Leanne, Magnolia, Andres and Simon
It ended up being a rather late night and I had to set an alarm to wake us up at a decent time in the morning so we could finish getting packed and have time to say goodbye to everyone.
As usual I will upload more of my photos from Cali Zoo to ZooChat – when I get time!
Tweets from today
- starting to pack our bags ready to leave Cali tomorrow morning after 26 days here. Bought some heavy books – bags will be overweight!
- 10th June, 2009 5:41 PM Following Her Heart ipod
from TweetDeck
- walked home from Cali Zoo along the river, only took about 40 minutes but it is very humid and we were carrying a lot of gear (and a baby!)
- 10th June, 2009 3:31 PM from TweetDeck
- Rain has stopped for now – at Cali Zoo taking lots of photos
- 10th June, 2009 11:28 AM from TweetDeck
- rain is getting heavier :(
- 10th June, 2009 9:23 AM from TweetDeck
- Reading about the cold snap in Sydney while sitting in my shorts with the fan on at 6am in Cali, Colombia. Not missing winter at all!
- 10th June, 2009 7:15 AM
from TweetDeck Blessed dvd
- Hoping this rain clears up in time for us to visit Cali Zoo again this morning – lots more photos I need to take for @ZooChat
- 10th June, 2009 7:03 AM
from TweetDeck
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