Bamako Zoo

Ever since the departure of Jeff and Abbie, I have basically been laying low, reading (almost done with Satanic Verses), surfing the web, and cooking. Today, however, in an effort to not go completely stir crazy, I went out to lunch with my friend Spencer. We hit up the Broadway Café, where I had one of their delicious cheeseburgers and a piña colada. Afterwards, we decided to brave the zoo.

We both expected the worst. I mean, Mali can't get a lot of its human life together, so how good could the zoo possibly be? While there were certainly depressing aspects, it wasn't as bad as we anticipated. First, it only cost 50 CFA to get in (about 10 cents). For that price, we weren't expecting much. But they had some nice enclosures with gazelles, artificial streams, storks, etc. There were also dismal cages containing baboons with hideously deformed rear ends or lone chimpanzees breaking your heart with their stares. There were cages of lions and hyenas, which are scarier in real life than you think they should be; I wouldn't want to meet a pack of them in the wild. One of the scariest parts of the zoo, however, was their serpent building, containing aquariums with vipers and pythons and other deadly snakes. I just don't trust Malian cages. We high-tailed it out of there pretty quickly.

As promised, there was indeed a broken tank containing a rotting manatee carcass. It was comically horrifying. I mean, why was it in such a tiny tank to begin with? Was it ever alive in there? Why didn't they dispose of the carcass? All questions calling for answers. But among the cooler animals were a panther, some ostriches, and the cutest little baby elephant, sadly without a mother.

We more or less enjoyed our visit, though, then went to the café at the national museum to get some sodas and hibiscus juice to cool off. Now I am back in my SIL purdah, back to the internet and my book. Not too shabby.

Pictures of the zoo trip shortly.