Ulog #11: A Fun Afternoon Trip to Avilon Zoo, 6/23/2018

Our planned visit to the zoo yesterday almost got cancelled because I woke up with quite an allergic reaction from who-knows-what. Thankfully, by mid-morning, the swelling around my eyes lessened enough for me to see okay, so we decided to proceed with the planned outing.

Image source: Avilon Zoo Website

Getting There

My two kids and I, my aunt, and cousin managed to squeeze ourselves into a 4-passenger GrabCar. The driver was nice to allow us to.😀

The drive was only a little over an hour from our place, and there was relatively no traffic, surprisingly. We found the palce eventually, after a couple of wrong turns because the driver's Waze app was giving him wrong instructions for some odd reason.

The zoo is located in the town of Rodriguez in Rizal province - formerly known, and still commonly referred to as Montalban. It was a bit hard to find mainly due to lack of signage pointing to the location. We had to stop a couple of times to ask for directions. I really think the management could easily put up signage around town, to help direct first-time visitors to the place. Plus, the signs would also help advertise the zoo.

First Impression

Yes, it was our first time to visit Avilon Zoo, and we were pleasantly surprised with how well-kept and clean the place is. The animals looked very well taken care of, and the workers we encountered were very friendly and helpful.

I wasn't even aware there's such a huge zoo like that around here, until we did an online search. According to their website, the entire zoo sits in a 7.5 acre land and boasts of housing more than 3,000 diffrent species of exotic wildlife with over 500 species of birds, mammals reptiles, amphibians, freshwater fish and others.

First and foremost, Food!

Time for some lunch

It was just past 12pm when got there so we decided to check out their cafeteria which is just by the main entrance. Their food is very reasonably priced. A plate of "rice meals", your choice of grilled pork belly, fried chicken, bbq on a stick, grilled bangus (milkfish) and a few others like the ones in the photos above, including a bottle of water will cost you between P150.00 - P180.00 (that's roughly around $3.00 - $3.25 USD).

The cafe was also built above this fish pond, where there are dozens of huge fish called arapaima gigas. Visitors are also allowed to feed these fish, but have to purchase the food from the zoo.

While we were waiting for our food to be served, we got to check the surrounding areas. There is another fishpond just across from the cafe where there are ducks, swans and flamingos. They also have this beautiful and rare black swan. *No pic here, because i used my regular camera to take them and I still havent gotten a chance to upload the photos from there yet. Perhaps in another post.

Checking out the area around the reataurant

Exploring the rest of the zoo

Around 1pm, after we had lunch, we began exploring. Because we took so much pictures, I decided to just group them together in collages for easy uploading. So here they are:

Some lovely feathered friends

Can you spot the lion?

Tigers, and Cheetahs, and Panthers, Oh My!

I couldn't help myself when I saw the black panther (above pic).. In my head, I was thinking "Wakanda Forever". 😁😂

Snacks for the giraffes

Probably the best part of the day for me was when we got a chance to feed these two beautiful giraffes. The kids really enjoyed it too. My son was amazed to find out that giraffe's tongues are purple! 😊

Taking a much needed break from all the walking for some selfies and silliness

We also checked out the cute little gift shop for some souvenirs before we headed out.

Gift shop

Overall, we had a really good time and will sure go back again in the near future.

💜,
jazzybells