By far the coolest thing I did in Argentina, should have been going
to one of the 7 natural wonders of the world, Iguazu Falls. But for me,
it wasn't. For me, since I am essentially a giant child, was going to
the Zoo de Lujan.
This may or may
not be a controversial topic, but if you don’t like it you can stop
reading now. The Zoo de Lujan is basically an adult petting zoo, where
you are able to interact with exotic animals without getting killed. It
is controversial because it is unclear whether the animals are or are
not drugged and are therefore so docile. I spoke with a lot of the
people working at the Zoo and asked them curiously if this giant lion I
was petting is on drugs, and they all responded no. He explained, or
lied, whatever you want to take it as, that all of the animals are
raised since birth with not only humans around them constantly, but also
dogs, which are extremely docile, for them to grow and mimic. That way,
the animals learn to play with humans like dogs do, instead of treating
them as prey. Whatever it is, my day went like this..
First thing you do when you enter the Zoo is pay 150 pesos, which is
around 25 USD. Right next to the entrance was a pen with a baby tiger, a
dog, a baby bear, and farm tractor. Im not sure what purpose the
tractor served but I knew from the start it was going to be a great day.
There were ducks absolutely everywhere, that followed you and honked at
you because they not only knew that you had food, but they also knew
that you had money to buy food. The followed us all around the whole
day. There are also free roaming llamas, that just walk up to you and
kind of stare at you, knowing as well that you have the capacity to feed
them.
The next thing I did was the best. They had kind of a
little rink made of hay bales, which was filled with baby tigers, about
the size of large house cats. You were allowed to go in and just hold
and play with the baby tigers as much as you wanted, and of course we
took about 300 pictures. Then, we waited on line for the lion den, where
there were 2 fully grown, enormous lions. They weren't just laying
there either, they were roaming around as lions do, and you were allowed
to walk alongside next to it and pet it anywhere except the mane. Then,
we got into the cage with tigers, regular and albino, and got to have
one take a giant blue garbage can out of my hands with its claws.
Next, we went on a tour of
the ostridge facility, where we got to fid and touch 6 foot tall birds,
and watch them stampede around. The final part of the facility had a
bear cage, with two enormous grizzly bears that we got to feed. These we
weren't allowed to touch, and their pen was surrounded by an electric
fence. Then I rode a camel. We ended the day by feeding an elephant, and
letting exotic birds swoop down from their cage top and take fish out
of our hands. The bottom line is, to some the Zoo might seem unfair
to the rights of animals. I am no PETA activist, so I have nothing to
say about whether or not the animals in the Zoo are being treated
correctly. All I can say is, all of them are very well fed, and don’t
seem like they are living terrible lives being pet and fed all day. To
say the least, I held a tiger, fed a bear, pet lions, road a camel, and
played with albino tigers. Drugs or no drugs, who else can say they've
done all that in a day for 25 bucks? Plus I got some great pictures.
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