I went to the zoo. I know this might seem extraordinary to you. But since I’m used to living among journalists, it feels perfectly normal to me. When I got to the wild boar compound — those things are pretty filthy — it was just like my desk. Passing by the parrots, I felt like I was on a coffee break with my coworkers. And when I visited the monkey area, I truly felt at home, I mean, back in the newsroom.
With the aid of a few liters of beer, you can even start to believe you’re on a safari in the African savanna.
Unlike journalists, monkeys scream the loudest when you toss them something to eat, like fruit. I ascertained this yesterday. I threw an orange at the pink-butted baboon, and judging by its leaps of joy, it didn’t catch my real intention — which wasn’t to feed it but to hit it square in the head.
Oh, beautiful flamingos. Oh, sad eyed tigers. Walking into the zoo, the first thing I don’t get is why you have to pay. And when I say pay, I mean mortgage half your life to buy a ticket. I’ve seen luxury cruises cheaper than what it costs to gawk at a bunch of dirty animals sentenced to life behind bars. Proof the world’s gone mad is the fortune we humans shell out to spend an afternoon entertaining and feeding these beasts. It’d make way more sense if the animals paid us idiots for the exhausting job of tossing peanuts to elephants — who, by the way, next to highway bollards, are the most unflinching creatures on Earth.
At least when it comes to catching flying peanuts. Then there’s the discounts and special conditions. My buddy, who’s rougher than a rhino, got in free through the animal entrance. I told them that in my not-so-distant childhood, playing soccer, I was as fast and agile as a gazelle. No luck — the security guard wasn’t particularly impressed with gazelles. Maybe he’s got gazellaphobia. Now that I think about it, I feel discriminated against; someone ought to give me a grant. Anyway, I had to enter through the human entrance. And I got charged extra for carrying a rifle.
The zoo’s business is making the natural seem extraordinary. Monkeys acting like monkeys, bears acting like bears, and tapirs acting like tapirs. Maybe you don’t know what a tapir is. I’ll teach you how to make one. It’s simple. You can do it at home. Take a small elephant. Turn it into a seal. Add koala ears. Shave those koala ears. Give it a pig’s body. Teenage panda bear feet. Now, if you want a Malayan tapir, paint it with black-and-white stripes like you’re drawing a zebra. But if you want an Amazonian tapir, slap on a coat of tan wood varnish, and mix in a touch of female-seal-in-mating-season tone. Once you’ve finished the critter, give it away quick, or it’ll stink up the whole neighborhood. The Malayan tapir is the only animal that smells worse than the Amazonian tapir.
The anteater caught my eye for a few minutes. I wonder what sin that poor bear committed in its evolutionary past to be punished with that huge snout and rat-haired, stretched-out body. It’s creepy watching it stumble nonstop — because it’s the only animal that doesn’t walk; it just trips constantly. And I’m not surprised. Walking with that dangling trunk is tough; I know what I’m talking about.
I’m also amazed by the lions’ ability to play-fight. With those lovely little claws, one tiny miscalculation in their joke-wrestling, even if it’s all laughs, and you’ve got a one-eyed lion. Yet they measure their scratches and bites with surgical precision to avoid real harm. Squabbling siblings could learn a thing or two from them.
For some weird reason, lions make me hungry. So yesterday, after visiting them, we stopped at a snack shack in the monkey area to grab some pizzas. We ate on the edge of a cliff that looked like a medieval moat, with an unbearable stench wafting up at us. A sharp, artificial stink mixed with nervous yells and shrill screams. Kind of like Wall Street on a calm day. I peeked over the cliff and saw it all. Piled up, hundreds of frantic monkeys living in a giant pigsty. I bet at some point they all tried warming their butts on the snack shack’s oven. Because every single one had a raw, peeled rear. It’s hard to picture anything more ridiculous and disgusting than a monkey with a raw butt. Trust me.
Taking stock, hands down, the best part of the zoo is the female tourists from Sweden. Not sure if they’re part of the show, though. Those Swedes really love getting close to watch the koalas sleep — the zoo’s most spoiled brats. Koalas sleep all day, live in the dark, and are protected by glass with a big sign that says, “Do Not Tap the Glass.” One of those signs that makes every Spaniard tap the glass with gusto, while the Swedes glare, all eco-warrior enough to cry for hours over a dead ant.
I was also surprised to find that the most fun to be had at the zoo isn’t with the animals but on those little carts you can rent — if you manage to yank out one of your kidneys and leave it as a deposit. The cart lets you forget you’re at the zoo surrounded by tourists. With the aid of a few liters of beer, you can even start to believe you’re on a safari in the African savanna. I must confess, crossing the reptile zone, I felt like I was competing in the Paris-Dakar. Racing through sandstorms, life or death, shooting at snakes, dodging Asian tourists, parents in Sunday dress, and other animals. The zoo could make a killing if they leaned into this angle. The rifle, the beer, and the rally. And if they sent all those nasty, peeled-butt monkeys back to the jungle — that for the sake of humanity and beauty, Noah should’ve tossed overboard on the ark.
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