San Diego Wild Animal Park

For a week now, mercury was soaring up and today was the peak we have ever experienced in San Diego. On a day when the early morning temperature was 95, we made our way through the ostrich farm, vineyards and farms on the out skirts of San Diego to reach San Diego Wild Animal Park at 9:20 AM. The park opens at 9:00 Am, and by the time we reached, there was a huge line to enter the park. The park authorities made a very good effort to keep the temperatures relatively cooler by misters and mist blowers. So the wait in the line was not that bad. After about 15 mins in the line, we entered the park. We planned on a short day-out. Our friends who visited the park after the wild fires last year, said that most of the exhibits were removed. So we did not anticipate on seeing a lot of exhibits and went in with not a whole lot of enthusiasm. We just planned on taking the African safari to see some giraffes and head back home.

Well, To our astonishment the park was very well landscaped and had so many exhibits that were worth the entire trip. After we entered the park, there was the normal camera clicking for the scrap books and photo albums. After which we entered the African aviary. It was filled with so many African species of birds. Birds with crowns, different colored beaks and every kind of bird you could imagine. The regular flamingos, ducks and geese were also present. There was a neat enclosure of Meerkat. Past all these, there was a wooden bridge over a small but aesthetically designed waterfall that falls into a pond where you could find pelicans, storks, ducks and other species of birds, names which I don't remember anymore. We spent some time there and then went on to see some gorillas. There were 3 small gorillas and couple of big ones. It was nice and cool with all the trees and benches to sit and spend some time looking at the antics of the gorillas. Then we made our way through a lift down to the huge line for African safari. We waited in the line for about 40 mins before we could hop on the bus for "Journey Into Africa", which is unfortunately only a 25 min ride. As is common with all the theme parks, the bus driver instructed us on various safety requirements before heading out. On our safari, we saw many a kind of deer, gazelles, rhinoceros, Giraffe, Zebra, Ostrich, and many other species. Their website lists all the different species that you could see. So I would like to avoid all that and move on with the trip. The bus ride was short and not a whole lot of photo opportunities either. This is where I thought my new DSLR camera came very handy. I just moved from my broken CanonS1IS to Nikon D40 and was debating which was the better one. I found my answer today. The response time and the clarity of images was excellent. Enough on cameras now. Moving on... Though we saw enough and varied types of animals, there were very few stops and the journey was way too short for what they had. After the safari, we exited off the bus and went to see some Cheetahs. To our utter dissatisfaction, there was not one that we could see. From there we got some soda to cool off and went on to see the lion cage. We saw 6 cubs born last Nov and Dec. They were huge for their age. It was a very close and intimate encounter. You could see how big their paws were and how they cuddle up and sleep on a hot sunny day like this.

It was 30 mins past noon and all our energies exhausted. We decided to do the elephant encounter on a later visit and headed back home. It was 120 degrees when we stepped back in the car. On our way, we stopped at one of the local farmers market there and bought some veggies.

On a whole, It was a very well maintained and aesthetically decorated park with lots of exhibits, flora and fauna, and bridges and board walks. we hope you all will have as much fun as we had. We wished we could have done it on a better day, but....