Wildlife in the City

To continue our last week's jaunt, we went to Malabon Zoo for another nature fun-trip particularly looking for an animalistic appeal we had found in 'Duma', an orphaned cheetah in a 2005 drama/adventure film we had recently watched. We were expecting to pay 50 pesos only for the entrance, but to our surprise the lady in charge of admission asks for 120 pesos as an entrance fee to the park. Since we were already there, there's no used in backing out, we'd just grabbed our purse and collect the amount our of our pocket with a heavy heart.

At the instance that we set our feet inside the part, we were greeted by this foul odor. At the entrance is a a large, black Burmese Python confined in a glass cage. Few steps further infront of us were acquariums of different fishes, large fishes! As we were nearing the cage of a Grizzly Bear (a few yards on the left side of the aquarium), the foul smell intensifies. In front of Grizzly Bear cage are cages for Lion and Tigers.

I can't help but pity the lion who seems so alone (he has no mate). We were so much trying to catch his attention but I think he is very used to people trying every trick to have him stand, face his audience and growl. He was just there, lying, facing the tiger's cage that I suddenly forumated several theories: either he was looking at each tigers as his prey or he was longing for a companion himself. The look on his eyes, so distant and gloomy I can't help but be sentimental. I'm an avid viewer of the disney animated film 'The Lion King' and I can't help comparing him to 'Simba' and 'Mufasa'. How a lion seems so proud, strong, a king of the wilderness. But seeing this lion, alone in the city, inside a cage, in his old age, all the splendors are gone. In his eyes I see how he long for the wild, to be free and untamed. On the other hand, I was thinking he's lucky to live a secure life, out of dangers of fighting over rivalries, of being hunted by a man (oppss... he was hunted by a man that's why he ended up in that cage!).

There were also a pair of orangutan and their baby named 'Marimar', very intelligent and affectionate. Some of the parents had took a picture of their children hugging the ape. When one of the spectator was munching a food, 'Marimar' was extending his hand and asking for food. She also knows how to appreciate person's appearance. When one of the viewer, a guy foreigner, sits beside her for a shot, she was like looking straight into the guy's face without a blink as if admiring the physical look on the foreigner's face - everyone was laughing!

Check out our laugh trip and posing moments here.