Edinburgh Zoo
There have been two times in my life now, where I thought, "this is it. You're about to wet your pants in public." Probably too much information, but this happened on our way to the zoo. Spoiler alert, I didn't.
This year, instead of trying to find a gift for Pedro for Valentine's day, I figured we could have an experience. So I bought us tickets to the Zoo in Edinburgh (this seemed like the best one). And luckily, it's a big enough attraction to have its own bus stop. Its about 4 miles from where we'd normally take the train into Old Town, so I had to explore other options. I found a double decker express bus that took the same amount of time and a bit cheaper.
I was a bit weary though. As with all the other busses here, if you don't clearly indicate you want the bus to stop, it will speed pass. So that meant I had my bus tracker up as well as my Google maps GPS going. And we still missed our stop! It would have been funny if my bladder wasn't screaming at me. The zoo is entirely on a hill, and we just couldn't see the sign from the bus window. We got off at the next stop, just a 5 minute walk along a forest reserve that I was fighting the urge to duck into. My saving grace was a Holiday Inn (not sponsored). I knew I couldn't make it to the zoo, because I studied the map in all my planning and saw the bathroom was not too close. Pedro was encouraging me the whole time as I ran into the hotel's restaurant (made it!).
Afterwards we had a laugh and upgraded our scale of bathroom emergency to a scale of 1 to Zoo. Endgame previously held the record as I tried to make it through the full 3 hours after drinking a large coke. Choices were made.
I'm glad I made the quick decision to go to the Holiday Inn, because the queue coming out of the zoo's check in probably would have done me in. All along the queue there were also employees selling their annual membership, and Pedro and I realized with a cheeky smile that they were naturally avoiding us due to our accents, thinking we don't live here. Ha!
We got our zoo maps and set off, first stop were the meerkats. What I liked about this zoo, was most of the enclosures (depending on the animal) were open style without glass/fencing. This was exactly what we wanted, a great way to try out our new cameras. I love that Pedro has been getting into photography because now we can share a hobby. We both now spend 10-15 more minutes at each place to get the picture we want, and I don't have to worry about taking my time because so is he. With this trip especially, there were too many cuties to not spend the whole day trying to photograph every moment.
This meerkat was the spotter on duty, so he was perfectly posing for us.
From there we pretty much skipped the flamingos and went straight for the red pandas. This couple was from the Netherlands, named Bruce and Ginger. And they were quick through the trees! I couldn't get a clear shot of Ginger, but got a few (fleeting) ones of Bruce.
We had to peel ourselves away from the pandas, and got sucked right into the otters. I thought at first it was too cold for them, and they were huddled in their den somewhere. But they were actually full of energy and play fighting the whole time! I think we took about 200 photos between the two of us, these guys were just too cute. They were out in the open as well, so we could hear their little squeaks and snorts throughout their play.
It's honestly amazing I got it down to a mere nine of these photos but I managed to pick out the most playful. This one otter just kept instigating by jumping into the pile, and the others would retaliate by chomping on his toes. Must be siblings.
We went through a few heated houses after that, visiting the animals inside since it was too cold for them in their outside enclosures. The kolas were hidden away, most of the chimps were asleep, but the sloth was surprisingly awake. Of course, Pedro and I were fighting with the heat and humidity with glasses and lenses fogging up, so we eventually gave up and just watched as the sloth climbed upside-down across the walkway once, and then climbed straight back into his hanging basket where he promptly fell asleep.
We visited a few more animals like the pigmy hippo and sun bear that were just too sleepy or hibernating to show their face, so we didn't disturb their slumber and moved on.
Again, most of the enclosures were open, so even if the animal was asleep, it was pretty cool to just be in the same space, seeing the sheer size of them, knowing you could reach out and touch it (but resist that).
The kangaroos and wallabies were out and about though, well, hopping around. A couple right in front of us were petting each other and nuzzling, too cute.
We briefly saw the giant pandas, but they were inside their dens with a large crowd gathering for their feeding time, so we took that time to go feed ourselves.
After figuring out our strategy for seeing the rest of the animals in the time we had left, we found the penguins. Unfortunately because of the bird flu, the penguin parade was canceled, but we could still see them waddle about outside.
Just as we were exiting the penguin house, I saw a bunch of people scurry out of an animal house, and shortly after, two huge rhinos saunter out into their enclosure. We quickly joined them, and Pedro was enthralled.
P: They're huge! Absolute TANKS. I've never seen one this close!
We spent a good amount of time here and we both discovered something about the one horned rhino. Did you know they moo? Moo like cows! They were mooing back and forth and they'd even moo with Pedro whenever he chimed in. Then one of them was playing around with a bucket at one point and ended up with it stuck on his head, absently mooing. We couldn't stop giggling. I think it just changed our perspective on them a bit. From thinking they're these huge dangerous animals (still are) to seeing it walk around with a bucket on his head and mooing. Just hilarious. (It did eventually free itself, no harm done.)
From there, we climbed to the hilltop where Pedro got his satisfactory view of the city. Along with some dinosaurs (animatronic). The zebras were also up here, just grazing about.
