Experiencing the San Diego Zoo Safari Park

Hey!

How is everyone doing? Good? Great!... Me? I'm fantastic, thanks for asking.

For today's post, I want to take you on a trip. Get ready animal lovers, because we're going to:

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The San Diego Zoo Safari Park

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(Photo from Wikipedia)

When we got to San Diego, coming down from L.A., friends of my parents offered to let us park the trailer in their beautiful backyard. Honestly, some of the best memories of this trip come from that place; good friends make for some good times.

It turns out that their house is quite close to the San Diego Zoo Safari Park! It's so close that they can actually hear the lions roar on the rare occasions that they do, which I thought was SO COOL. One morning when we didn't have much to do my whole family and Mary (the family friend) set out on a Safari expedition. At least it felt like we were!

San Diego is known for its amazing zoo, and let me tell you, it lived up to the hype. The Safari Park is in a completely different location than the actual zoo, but it's technically part of the zoo itself. The Safari Park is much more wide open and allows most of the animals, such as the giraffes and rhinos, to roam freely on many acres of safari-type land. It's a pretty incredible sight.

All of the proceeds from visiting the Safari Park go towards research and conservation of the worlds most endangered animals. Many of the animals I have photos of are endangered themselves, so I feel comfortable paying for a ticket that simultaneously lets me witness the natural beauty of a wild safari and help protect the species that are presented.

In this post, I wanted to experiment with some black and white photos, which I believe gives the photos below an entirely different feel than a color photo would.

Mary has a route that she normally takes when she goes to the park, so she was our guide. The first section was filled with large birds, which included the beautiful California Condor. He refused to turn towards me for a good picture, so I did my best with what he gave me.

We spent some time admiring the birds of prey, and then moved on to the tigers!

The shrine-like structure that preceded the tiger exhibit

Recently, the park acquired a couple a tiger cubs, and they were freaking cute.

A bit blurry, but still cute

They spent most of their time hiding from all of the observers, but I managed to snap a couple of decent photos when he stayed still for 0.1 seconds.

Next to the cubs, in a separate exhibit, was one of the adult tigers. He was pacing his enclosure the entire time we looked at him, seeming kind of bored (sadly). Every once in a while he would look at me crouching down next to the glass, and we would lock eyes. It was sort of a surreal experience, gazing into the eyes of that mighty cat.

Close by were the lions: three females and one male. As we walked up to the glass, we saw that the lions were being quite...active. At one point the male started doing something to his female friends that was a little inappropriate for adolescent eyes. Oh well, that's nature for ya.

We also got to witness something that the employee standing next to us said was very rare. The male started roaring, and I could feel it deep in my chest, vibrating the very core of my being. The females began joining in, and soon every lion in the exhibit was roaring what can only be described as a song, taking turns "harmonizing" with each other. My mind was pretty blown at this point, not quite believing what I was hearing.

A couple of the lions were perched on their "Pride Rock"

After staying with the lions for a while, we continued on to what would become my favorite zoo experience I've ever had: the gorillas.

I have always found gorillas very fascinating ever since I learned about the gorilla that was taught to communicate through sign language. The intelligence of these mammals blows my mind every time I come across them, and this time was no exception. The open exhibit was filled with all ages of gorillas, from elderly to infant. Witnessing the dynamic social interactions that go on within a group of gorillas was incredibly interesting. I was able to see how a mother interacts with her baby, how the "teenagers" play with each other, and how the elderly keep to themselves, usually far away from the others.

A mother and her infant

One of the younger "teens", which was my favorite :-)

A young adult, who went in-between playing with the kids and resting

An older male, who I thought looked like he was meditating at some points

After surveying the gorilla population for a bit, we went on to see many other animals, which I wasn't able to get good pictures of. But that's okay, because I was enjoying the simplicity of observing without any distraction.

On the way out of the park, we saw a meerkat perched up in a standing position. He was basically begging for a picture, so I granted his (her?) wish.

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Thanks for reading about my trip to the San Diego Safari Park! Hopefully it inspired you to go see it for yourself.

This is just one part of this huge trip that I'm on, so if you want to stay updated you can follow me! I'll be posting as much as I can about my travels, and some other topics as well.

Peace :-)

!steemitworldmap 33.097383 lat -116.995798 long San Diego Zoo Safari Park D3SCR