Cuenca Part 3: Amaru, The Coolest Zoo

"UCLA" Toucan (Couvier's Toucan): check out his blue and yellow markings. Go Bruins!

Cuenca's Amaru Zoológico Bioparque is probably the coolest zoo we have ever visited -- okay, maybe tied with the Jaguar Rescue Center (JRC), a center for injured animals on the eastern coast of Costa Rica. JRC was amazing because of the sheer number of adorable baby sloths and monkeys and how close we were able to get to them. Amaru is just as special for a number of other reasons. My kids were literally vibrating the entire visit, and Dillon took over 180 photos before my phone died.

Amaru is tucked up in the hills on the outskirts of Cuenca, and its winding paths through the animal enclosures are closer to a moderate hike than a stroll through a typical US zoo. Ecuador has so much biodiversity that the overwhelming majority of animals at Amaru are Ecuadorian natives. These include a number of injured animals who cannot be released to the wild after rescue and rehabilitation.

The zoo is designed in such a way that, as you hike, you are literally traveling through the variable topography of Ecuador -- from high páramo to cloud forest to dry forest to rain forest to coastal plains. And there is no going back! You simply follow the red arrows through the park in a one-way loop that ensured you got to experience every animal there. It took us almost four hours. Interspersed between animal enclosures, there were a number of conservation exhibits that were designed to challenge typical Ecuadorian attitudes towards the environment, including a powerful display of plastic bottles and trash, one on forest and man-made fires, and several on the pitfalls of hunting.

I have written before about our family's bird obsession. Amaru did not disappoint on this front. At some point on our hike, we found ourselves in a huge tropical aviary, literally surrounded by tropical birds -- too many to see and sometimes so close to our eyeballs that we missed them at first. These included: purple gallinules (Dillon's favorite), blue and yellow macaws, scarlet macaws, chestnut-fronted macaws, Couvier's toucan, chachalacas, red-masked parakeets, blue-headed parrots, and more.

I think our abnormally intimate relationship with our chicken, Sherman, has enhanced our family's attraction to birds -- when birds chirp or cock their heads at us, we are reminded of our little imprinted pet, and we all feel connected. Brynna seems to believe that all birds are smiling at her.

Later, we saw several beautiful hawks -- one of whom literally ambushed Dillon for looking at him wrong (see the funny photo) -- and a huge injured Andean Condor, which is on the endangered species list, at high risk for extinction due to hunting and pesticide poisoning. We learned that there are only sixty Andean Condors in the wild in Ecuador, twenty in captivity. Sheesh.

But there weren't just birds at Amaru! There were mammals: el oso andino (spectacled bear), the only South American bear. There were curious primates playing and roaming treetop paths: squirrel monkeys, spider monkeys, and woolly monkeys. There were rodents and wild boars: capybaras, tapirs, and peccary. There was a cute baby deer with his mama. There were several different weasels, including the tayra and the long-tailed weasel. There was a jaguar, pumas and ocelots. And, for the most part, their habitats were spacious, and the animals seemed content (always a concern at zoos).

Dillon's second near-miss of the day came from a capuchín monkey, who was clearly unhappy about us watching him through the luckily thick glass of his enclosure. After pacing for awhile, and then pushing his nose up to the glass, he found himself a moderately sized rock and tapped it against the wooden beam between the windows. We learned later that this was his way of warning us. He wandered off, and a few minutes later, he returned and picked up a slightly larger rock. He hefted it up over his head like a weightlifter and suddenly leapt toward Dillon, smashing the rock against the window with a startling noise, though amazingly, the glass remained intact. Dillon was spooked, and so was I; I grabbed his arm and we all quickly trotted off post-traumatically laughing.

Next there were gobs of reptiles and amphibians. Rooms and rooms full of them. Snakes galore, big and small, dangerous and not. Same with frogs. A giant iguana. Caimans. In one part of the zoo, they had recreated the humidity of the Amazon inside a simple structure (Whew, it's hot! We are all a little trepidatious about our upcoming Amazon adventures after just a half an hour in the humidity). In a separate area, they even housed a few of the magnificent giant Galapagos Tortoises. Man they are big!

It truly felt like our Wildlife of Ecuador book came alive in this beautiful hill-side park.

Surprisingly, almost the very last stop was a large enclosure with five or six African lions, which seemed a bit out of place, considering all the time we spent visiting native Ecuadorian animals. However, the close up view of said lions eating their lunch of big bloody chunks of animal parts felt uniquely Ecuadorian.

On our hike, we managed to eat through our entire bag of mandarinas that we picked up on the way (15 for $1 on the corner outside our apartment), stop for a bit to enjoy a cute lunch area and eat our pb&j and potato chips, and do a lot of oohing and ahhhing. Paul didn't join us because he was doing make up Spanish language lessons, and he wasn't initially interested in the zoo, but the kids have convinced him that another trip is in order.

Vamos a ver!