7th Jan: animals

Today we went to the Toronto Zoo. We had faithful pancakes, surprise fruit, coffee and cordial for breakfast. I was so put off by the creamer I took my coffee black. We triumphed the Toronto public transport and caught a metro and a bus 35km to the zoo.

We tried to swindle our way in by using their promotion of a half price promise, which would come into effect if there was a forecast of -10. Sadly only the wind chill was -10, and this did not seal the deal. First up we enjoyed the white rhino, and the white rhino enjoyed Sophie. It stirred and took a blurry look at Sophette.

We wandered around Africa, where the animals were either in a nice warm pavilion, outside and surprisingly active, or off display. I did wonder where these animals off display are being kept. There were quite a few, among them the large Elephant, large Hippo and the pygmy hippo. We trekked over a kilometre to get to the Canadian Wildlife section. Who would have guessed the grizzly bear was in hibernation! Bastard! We checked out the moose, we gently called to it(i.e made moose impressions), and stirred the moose’s from their seated position. They strutted around, which was really cool, they seem very awkward animals, they are SO large, and have very lanky legs that don’t seem to function quite so gracefully. The sad part was, they did not have their antlers. In winter a moose will shed its antlers!

My highlight was the Tundra section. We saw arctic wolves, they even howled dramatically as a pack AND two polar bears. They were astounding! We watched them for ages, they frolicked around, ate and were generally amazing. Oh, they did not appear to be the largest land predator.

Next we saw the Americas, and TWO sloths! They stunk so much, but they were there hanging upside down, not moving, and probably growing algae and mould.

We had to wait a super long time for the bus to catch home. Two consecutive buses did not come. The dark and cold were approaching. We made the journey home, and were so tuckered out form all the walking around and enjoying of the zoo that we skipped the shoe museum, and went home. We even managed to have trouble with our seemingly simple dinner or bagel, avo, tomato and salad. The salt and pepper we had spied last night in the free for all had been taken! A dinner – ruined. Well not ruined but less enhanced. Finding clean plates, forks and knives was a general struggle too! We tried to go out for coffee at Starbucks, but it is apparent that people in Toronto do not drink booze (we could not find one liquor store) they drink coffee and hog café tables. We had to go to a second cup, and search long and hard for an available table.