☽★☾: cuties at the zoo (baluarte zoo highlights)

yeah, him too. ARRrryaready kids? AYE AYE CAPTAIN

i know, i know. it's january and i'm posting events that happened at the start of september. but it's nice to spread out the happiness of recalling. i plan to keep sprinkling memories from the summer here and there until beardy comes back :) i'm sure he'll enjoy recalling too. :D

amazingly tame macaws

I loved Baluarte Zoo. It's free, and you could get up close and personal with the animals in a way you wouldn't imagine was possible in a zoo. It was my first time to ever visit one, and i didn't need to brace myself for seeing a bunch of sad cuties in cages because surprise surprise!! It was a very good zoo: the animals looked healthy and well-fed, the place looked and smelled clean, and a lot of the animals are just free to roam, really.

Save for fences for geese (didn't stop the cute deer from hopping over to their side to get some shade when the clouds went away) a leash for the dromedary, a fence for the little route where the pony carts go around, and cages for tigers (but the men in charge opened the door for us anyway! -more on that later.)

The moment we walked in, there was this branchy fixture with just a bunch of beauuutiful birds perched on it. no cages, not even ankle ropes. they're just there, all happy and beautiful. they weren't even trying to get away! but if i was a bird, i don't think i would try either.

i dono wat u r called but i'm calling you contortabird

und also chickons becos let's not discriminate. (and they're friggin cute okay runnin around like maniacs)

exhibit A.. just scoochin over while macaw scratches its face

I suppose the heavens were paying me back for having to walk this half the time with the soles of my sandals falling off because just as we were fawning over the beautiful blue macaws and standing awkwardly beside them for pictures because we're very polite and timid children (see exhibit A), the friendly men in green informed us that we can actually PUT THEM ON OUR SHOULDERS or PROP THEM ON OUR HANDS for pictures and that there was no fee for this wonderful experience, we just need to donate something to the zoo and we can name our own price!

I gif'd the pictures because although this lessens the quality of the individual photos (i had to use a free online tool to create these gifs), it captures better the essence of the fact that the macaw is an ACTUAL LIVING MOVING BREATHING POSING THING that willingly stood on my shoulder !!! because it's seriously so pretty and majestic (beardy said it could bite my thumb off if the mood ever struck it) that it looks fake~~

i feel so badass letting him hop on my bare shoulder! friends fo evaa

also, is it just me or does this macaw REALLY know how to pose for pics? he has this model face-tilt thing going on.

a more bizarre type of bird also roamed the zoo, a kind that i was actually very excited to see because i've never seen them before. but OH MY GOD OSTRICHES ARE REALLY CREEPYLOOKIN.

look at that earhole tho.

see, i'm very used to their appearance in pictures and in video, when they're running around and stuff. but seeing one up close and relaxed was just really different. first of all, their feathers:

EEK! they stick right up and the skin underneath is goosebumpy.. i guess this extreme level is called ostrichbumpy. that and the fact that it's not dense enough to cover the skin is creeping me out a little bit. maybe it's my trypophobia. DONT google that. unless well, unless you don't have it i guess? hee

secondly, the way their heads move! they really move like they're muppets! like there's a rod attached to the head part, and the neck is just loose slacking material.

"say whaat."

okay maybe i just have an overactive imagination. beardy didn't really seem too spooked by it. but yeah. something about the way they kinda wag their heads with eyes vacant and mouths open, man. it's like they were spookin me on purpose. reminded me all too well of those puppet thingies in the 90s that were supposed to be for kids but just ended up creeping me out.

luckily, although a wee uncomfortable, i'm oddly... comfortable with being uncomfortable in this way? i kind of like getting weirded out by new things. so don't take this ostrich commentary as me hating ostriches. in fact i like them even more now! i never knew they were so interesting-looking!

next up, the white deer were fun:

cuuutieees!!!

they roamed the whole place the most compared to the other animals. but they were still very timid. like cats! they run away from you if you walk too close to them. except during feeding time, if you're near the food box. they'll only shy away if you're close enough to touch them.

these cuties are so free, they even trespassed on over to the geese's side (like aforementioned. because of the sun)

goose, goose, ...deer? 'wat am i doin here'

when we wandered off to the deep end, around the area with this view if you want a hint:

hmm.. maybe not. i just wanted to include this photo because holy shit look at that building. even the clouds are pointing towards it it's so redonk

a bunch of men in charge started to call upon us. "tigers here! tigers!" what?? yes! the heavens really pitied me and my sandals because we were called on over to where they kept the tigers that weren't on display!

this one was really sassying it up for the camera. her name is Chiara. if i remember correctly the male one's name is Big (beardy heard "Dick" which is.. let's just not go there and put the names together) and the other female is Queen.

I could not believe how kittylike she was behaving. She's a litol cute kitten trapped in a majestic tigress body.

soft kitty warm kitty deadly ball of furrrrrrr~

beardy got to touch queen's fur. i didn't, but i'm not sure they'd want me to. in fact i feel like they're really digging my boyfriend and want to steal him from me:

i mean look at how she looks at me in the second picture jesus christ

chiara begging me to give her my boyfriend

he pretends to not care but it hurts him a little to see chiara flirting with other males. he may have huge boy-tiger front legs but inside he's just a huge puffy softy.

other than that, there were cute ponies, huge dromedaries with huge heads, litol insects, and various exotic animals and birds and stuff and more deer of different sizes!