We go to Temaiken zoo!

After a couple of big storms during the week (Agus and I have never heard thunder so loud, lightning was lighting up the house and waking Alfie up at 2 and 4am one night!) the sun is back out for the weekend. We had made plans to take Alfie to the zoo on Sunday so it would have sucked to have to cancel them. Tio Pato and Tia Magui pick us up and once we get Alfie’s car seat in place we head off north of the city to Belén de Escobar where Temaiken zoo is. It’s only a 35min drive which is perfect for a trip with Alfie. We meet Santi and Caro at the entrance and head inside only to be greeted with an theme park style array of photographers wanting to take our picture…we pose for one to appease them, they give Agus a number so she can find it later on our way out in the gift shop, and we move on quickly.

First up it’s the Flamingos. Alfie is now with Tio favorito Santi (basically he got sucked in first to carrying him) and the excitement levels are rising. Next up we spot a Zebra with a baby and it’s Tio Pato’s turn now to carry Alfie…you see the pattern emerging right. After a few more animal enclosures (including the bats where we found out that both Magui and Caro really don’t like them) we have a snack at one of the cafe’s near the alligators. Agus and I make him walk through the kangaroo & wallaby enclosure and he isn’t too happy about this. Maybe he is disgruntled with this as he didn’t come thousands of kilometres to see Aussie animals, more likely it was because he saw a sign with a shark on it earlier in the morning and we haven’t got to the aquarium yet. Anyway we make it a priority to go there next as we know that there is a time limit with Alfie and we don’t need a toddler meltdown. We see a hippo on the way and Alfie tells Santi that hippos fart (I think that he remembers this from when we went to Werribee zoo with Eoin, Penny and Laragh) – gold commentary from a 3yr old, he may not be the next Messi but he might still have a chance for the next David Attenborough!

Big fish, small fish, but where are the shark fish? We finally find them in the biggest tank at the bottom level of the aquarium. We go through the tunnels – there is a person in there cleaning the tank, hopefully the sharks have been fed today. Alfie’s runs to the glass when he sees them and I put him on my shoulders for a better view. I knew he was dead keen on dinosaurs but I didn’t know that he was into sharks! We must have stayed in there for 10mins, which is an eternity in Alfie time. On our way out we go past a few more tanks and one had an eel in it. Alfie tells Tio Santi (who is now back on chauffeur duties) that it is a snake fish!

Out of the darkness and back into the light we make a path for the bird aviary enclosure and on entry are greeted by a Macaw that screeches at us when we open the inner door. Alfie gets a big shock, but holds it together whilst Agus and Santi crack up at his facial expression. The Macaw is holding onto the cage just above the door and is probably trying to escape. Once Alfie sees him and all of the other birds he turns into a complete chatterbox telling me all of their colours and pointing out new parrots, macaws, ibis, ducks etc. as he sees them. Agus is astounded that there are actually red bin chickens (i’ll admit that I didn’t know this either, I though ibis were just white with black heads). On the way out we had to show the keeper that we hadn’t stolen any of the birds and tried to smuggle them out in our backpacks which apparently this is a common thing here – sad.

Next it’s over to the puma enclosure but before we get in to it there is a dinosaur fossil dig area for kids. Obviously Alfie is straight in there and playing about in the sand uncovering bones, somehow though he has missed the big dinosaur skeleton on display behind him until we point it out and then he tries to climb over the glass fence to touch it. We manage to drag him away after about 10mins and I can see his uncles are keen to show him their national animal the puma. Ok well it isn’t officially the national animal but it is much more impressive than the small Honero bird. So we head down the tunnels and to the viewing windows where we spot two pumas. His uncles are super excited and start running with him between windows to see them.

And that was pretty much that we made our way back to the zoo entry – Alfie was of course on my shoulders as he didn’t want to walk anymore, I did manage to pass him off to Pato towards the end. Agus was sucked into buying the tourist photo. We then headed towards Pilar to have lunch at Kansas. It was a bit of a wait to get a table but luckily for us they have a pond around the restaurant that is home to lots of ducks and that kept Alfie entertained. We were also seated inside next to the big glass windows so we had a good view of them again. Food & service were great this time (the first visit to Kansas in Vicente Lopez was a disaster as half of their kitchen wasn’t working aparently) my only disappointment was that I thought I saw flan being served but it was a dulce de leche cheesecake.