Zoo!

So as I mentioned, Jake, Mattie, Christine, and I went to the zoo this afternoon. What makes this zoo so much cooler than other zoos I've been to is that you can buy buckets of food to feed the animals! It's some sort of multipurpose food I guess (small green pellets and some crunchier-looking brown pieces), because you're allowed to give it to most of the animals. 

It was also fun how close the animals are--I kept zooming my camera all the way in out of habit, and then realizing that the whole animal didn't fit in the frame! Some of the enclosures don't look quite sufficient to contain a truly motivated-to-escape animal, but most of the animals seemed pretty lazy and apathetic (especially in regards to the food we were trying to give them).

This chimpanzee made me really sad. He's the oldest animal in the zoo, and has to live by himself because he's too frail to be around younger male chimpanzees and compete with them for food. The sign said that he has a special enrichment program with toys and attention from the keepers, but when we saw him he was sitting in the corner of the window of his enclosure, looking at all the kids clustered around. Maybe it's just the way chimpanzee faces look, but he appeared pretty lonely.

In addition to the standard zoo animals, they also had some that were more particular to the region:

A lot of the animals had habitats decorated with very stereotypical themes from their region of origin:

What I found even more interesting and novel than the official zoo animals was the abundance of other strange rodent-like critters roaming the zoo grounds--things I had never seen before.

I guess nutreas aren't all that strange, but I still did not expect to see them in the middle of Buenos Aires:

But this guy...???

And since apparently no outing is complete without mate, there were hot-water vending machines so people could refill their thermoses.