We moved from Chicago to Cuenca: Cuenca Celebrities at Amaru Zoologico, and our return visit to a local Market.

Last summer the staff at the Amaru Zoo were delighted when they recieved new additions to their collection; three lion cubs were born, two females and one male. It was a pretty big deal with the local Cuencanos.

We had been planning on visiting the cubs, and we finally got around to it this week We read in the newspaper that the zoo had a competition for children to name the three young lions, and that they had been "Baptised" - their word - on Sunday August 12th, so we decided we wanted to see these "Cuenca Celebrities".

Amaru Zoologico Logo.

(I thought it was cool, so I bought a baseball hat with the logo)

The Zoo is situated on the side of a mountain,

the views from the parking lot were worth the trip alone.

This is a collage we found after we entered the zoo, it was made from newspaper pages shaped to resemble a lion. There were several other collages as well. We wondered to ourselves if it might have been an activity for the children during the competition to name the Lion cubs.

We started our hike into the Zoo, and I mean HIKE, to visit the animals. It was all uphill on dirt roads and occasional wooden paths. If it had been rainy, the paths would have been a NIGHTMARE, real ankle turners. For our visit, it was charming.

The zoo is upgrading a few of the exhibits, so we missed seeing some of the inhabitants. We saw Llama's, Alpaca's, several types of monkeys, White Tail Deer, Ocelets, a Galapagos Tortuga, several other animals, and lots of birds. Amaru has an interesting selection which includes Andean bears. The female is pregnant and we were told the chance of seeing the male and female on this trip were pretty slim. The Bears are hanging out in a cave until the birth. Maybe they will have another contest to name the baby bear!!

As we walked around the exhibits, we could hear birds squawking. They were not in an exhibit, just hanging around in the trees, and we could hear them saying "Hola" over and over again, they were waiting for a response. So when we got to these incredibly beautiful birds, we stood around and talked to them.

As we mentioned earlier, the Zoo is doing alot of upgrading, which includes planting alot of new stuff. We have never seen this type of Cactus before.

Crocodile, (not native) kinda scary and nasty teeth!! We were surprised they had a Croc, and not a Caiman, something we had seen in the Amazon.

NOT ANIMAL RELATED!!

We see alot of old tires in lots and fields around the city. We have no clue why the tires are saved. Voila, one use; the Zoo utlilized tires, and some blobs of cement to build the foundation for this building in the Zoo.

The Cuenca Celebrities.

The zoo had three Lions before the birth of the cubs last summer. We inquired if Amaru would be able to keep and maintain all six of the Lions. They are hopeful, but there may be an issue between the Older male and his son.
We hope they all get live together at Amaru.

It was a really nice excursion. It was overcast and cloudy when we went there, which at the time, I thought was a bummer, until we started exploring Amaru. If the sun had been out, I think we would have baked during the climb, and the subsequent walk back down.

Our trip to a great market this week:

Doce de Abril Mercado.

We had been to this market before with a tour group back in March, so we decided to visit it on our own. We went to the merchants that were recommended on the tour. Neither Michael or I are big on Pork, but Michael enjoyed his sample of this "stuff" (a whole pig, that has been cooked) when we visited before. This lady just stuffed her hand into the cooked pig, and grabbed a bunch of meat. She made sure to clean off the fat, take out the bones, and include a little bit of the crunchy skin. She also gave us a "yappa", which means a free gift. The yappa was a few potato patties she was cooking with the meat. We walked through the market chowing on the potato patties, and licking our fingers. OMG, they were delicious.

We also went to the "Meat Lady", and we got the BEST ground beef we have ever had!!!

We bought a pineapple, 5 avacodos, 3 tomatos, 6 or 7 limes, a few red onions, about 3 pounds of potatos, the pork and ground beef. The total was less than $8.00.