April | 2012 | From Oregon to Nicaragua, one family's journey.

We decided that a day at the Nicaragua National Zoo was a good thing to do. I am not a fan of the zoo it’s a love hate relationship I have with zoo’s because it’s fun to see all the cool animals however it makes me sad to think about the Animals being there and not home. Unless they are rescued which then I guess that makes it a little better. How can a Zebra be happy in Los Angeles or better yet Minnesota? How can any Animal really be happy confined….. Are we?

Maybe I just have a soft spot, Sometimes I imagine I feel just like that Zebra being in a completely foreign place, and maybe being one out of two or three of your “Kind”. Having people constantly looking at you and taking pictures with you, makingyou feel like a rock star for sometime then the feeling starts to drift away and you find yourself starring back at them with just as much wonderment as they have with you. I imagine the Zebra can feel uncomfortable and awkward and maybe a bit self conscious at times, feelings of missing family and friends, lonely, sad, angry, happy I’m sure the Zebra has all senses as well as all abilities to have feelings. The only difference between that Zebra and me is people pay to see the Zebra!

There was a Butterfly sanctuary that was my favorite part of the jailhouse for Animals, Cocodrillos, Beautiful peacocks and parrots, crazy Monkeys, snakes, and bunch of other smelly Animals. What I thought was kind of cool was there was no Giraffe’s or Zebras, Hippos or Rhinos, the Animals there were all basically from Central America except of your course for a few Lioness’s and a tiger or two. The girls had a really good time and in the end so did I. Lila was having fun with the Parrots, She made me chuckle, She walked over to the Parrot cage and insistently said “Hola” like three or four times and then got a “Hola” back in parrot, but what made me chuckle was that she knew to say Hola and not Hello, I probably would of busted out the “hello” and got no response. Two hours of hot smelly Zoo and we were ready for the pool, but not with out eating a Popsicle first.