San Antonio - part 2 - Friday 2nd November

Woke up about 9am, showered & dressed and then headed off the the post office with a bag of stuff to be posted back to my friend in LA.  Was rather surprised when I entered the building and had to put my bags through an x-ray machine & I had to walk through a metal detector - to go to the post office.  The building is also the site of the Federal Building & Courthouse so that kind of makes sense.  The post office is on the ground floor just around the corner from the entrance.  Anyway, packed a box and sent it off, the last box I will be sending back as I will be back in LA in 5 days.  I then headed to the bus station to go to San Antonio Zoo.  Reverted to tourist mode on the walk to the bus station & took some photos.

San Fernando Cathedral.

San Fernando Cathedral.  It was the Dios de Muertos so there were a few shrines around the city.

Fountain outside the Bexar County Courthouse.  I thought the gathering of people on the other side was a tour group but as I walked past I discovered it was actually a wedding.

Bexar County Courthouse.

Another part of The Riverwalk.

I walked along a part of the River Walk but I didn't go on one of the barges.

Above the door of the San Antonio Public Library.

I wasn't going to go to the San Antonio Zoo, but I didn't have anything else to do so thought I would take a bus ride & go to the zoo to fill in some time.  Got on the correct bus (yay!), missed the stop at the zoo (buggar!), went out to the Botanical Gardens, then back to the zoo & got off at the correct stop this time (yay!).  Got into the zoo and started on my way around.  They are doing some improvements so some of the exhibits were closed & some empty, but still it was an amazing place and I stayed longer than I had planned.  I arrived at about 1pm & didn't leave until the zoo closed.  I saw some animals I hadn't seen at the other zoos I have visited.  I didn't actually see all the animals as I had to be careful where I went into coz they had snake and spider exhibits which I had to avoid.  The only downer for me was that they only had 1 of quite a few of the animals, it was quite sad to see the jaguar & other animals by themselves.  But then there could be reasons for it, like they don't play well with others.  It was a very hot day so some of the animals, mainly the big cats - surprise surprise - were lazing & sleeping in the shade, but the other animals running around made up for that.  And I got to see something amazing - rock squirrels!!  I saw them running around in a couple of the open enclosures and thought they were squirrels, but they looked different to the squirrels I have seen, and when I asked one of the zoo-keepers (embarrassing but he was very nice) he told me they were rock squirrels & were native to the area due to the rockiness of the terrain.  I had a wonderful day and even managed to catch the correct bus back to town, and got off at the correct stop.

American Black Bear.  This was actually the only bear they had.  At least he wasn't alone tho.

Francois Langur monkey with baby.  It was SO CUTE!!

Clouded Leopard trying to find a way out.

He/She gave up after a while & sat down. The way he/she looked at me was like he/she was pleading with me to let him/her out to play.

Part of the 'Big Lake' with fish, ducks & pelicans free to fly around - no nets.

Hippopotamus under water.  This was cool!!

Hippopotamus swimming.

Crocodile.  They had quite a few different species of crocodiles & alligators.

Dwarf Crocodile.  Quite cute really.

Warthog.  They had quite a collection of African plains/desert animals.  Only pity was most of them were alone, like this guy.

Elephant taking a bath.  Got video as well as it was rather amusing to watch.

Dwarf Mongoose (Mongeese???) - cute little critters.

Okapi, amazing markings on these animals.  This one was all by itself.

Birds in the huge aviary.  They had a lot of bird exhibits, was rather impressed.

More birds - gorgeous colouring on these.

Dama Gazelle & kid/foal/calf (???)

Not actually an exhibit animal but quite numerous in this part of the zoo - Rock Squirrel.

Lioness keeping cool.  According to the placard the lion was inside keeping cool.

Sumatran Tiger keeping cool.

Typical Aussie pose.  LOL  A Red Kangaroo taking a nap.

Crested porcupine - this is the 1st actual real porcupine I have seen. :-)

Birds of Australia exhibit.  There was no netting between you & the birds.  This bird was not very co-operative - I asked it 4 times to move so I could get a clear photo.

Australian birds in a tree.

Eastern Rosella's having a snack.

Black Swans - according to the placard they come from the region of New Zealand. :-)

Yellow-spotted Amazon River Turtles.  That had quite a variety of turtle species.  Again, rather impressed.

American Alligator.

Funny looking bird - the Secretary Bird - after reading the notes about this bird I like them, they eat snakes.  One of the problems one encounters at zoos - wire fence enclosures, not conducive (good) for photo taking.

Inside the 'Hixon Bird House'.  I think this is a Blue-Breasted Kingfisher.

A pair of Yellow Breasted Starlings.

Taveta Golden Weaver chick - it is just learning to fly.

Guam Kingfisher - only found in captivity, none alive in the wild due to the brown snake being introduced to Guam & eating them all.

I nicknamed these 'Penguin Birds' coz they kind of look like penguins.  They are actually Inca Terns.

OMG!!  A giant guinea pig!!  No, just a Capybara.  Still cute even tho they are rather large.

Jaguar.  The other downer of the day was that it was hot & all the big cats were doing what cats do best.

Didn't find out what these birds were actually called so I have nicknamed them 'Mini Flamingo'.

Giant Anteater. 

It was amusing the way the fish surrounded the bird feeders waiting for the birds to drop some food.

My great mood was brought down when I got back to the hotel tho - I had sent a few items (2 pairs of jeans & 4 t-shirts) to the hotel's laundry service, and when I got them back the laundry place had charged me for 4 blouses - they had no buttons, no collar, weren't even from a silky-type material.  WTF!!  So I complained & the front desk lady rang them, told me what the guy (Raj - yes he was Indian from India surprise surprise) had said & then passed the phone to me to talk to him, which I did & he kept telling me they were blouses as they were ironed differently.  WTF!!  After a couple of minutes of this I told him there was no way I was paying the bill & hung up on him.  Within 1 minute he rang back, talked to the front desk lady & then she informed me that he was only going to charge me the t-shirt rate so she altered the bill by $8.00.  All I can say is some things are the same worldwide.  Sorry if I offend anyone, but it is true.  I then went up to my room, checked emails & facebook and encountered the 2nd bad thing for the day - my friend in LA told me the parcel I had posted on Monday hadn't arrived.  So I checked through all the receipts I had kept but couldn't find the one for the parcel.  Argh!!  I just hope they send it to the return address which is my friend in Ohio's address and then I can arrange for her to send it to LA.  After stressing out for about half an hour I then had the rest of the candyfloss I bought at the zoo & a Dr Pepper for dinner while watching tv.  About 11pm I did the typing part of my blog, transferred, sorted & renamed photos.  I headed to bed about midnight so I could get up & sorted to get to the bus station for my bus to Las Vegas - a 1 day 9 hour trip, and in a weird way I was kind of looking forward to it.

Another amazing, gorgeous sunset.