Getting Our Bearings In B.A.

Upon arrival, Anne, Mark and H-Bomb spent a couple of days in a hotel before moving to their permanent (for 2 years) residence.  They will be living in the Belgrano neighborhood, which is pretty cool.  The Belgrano University is within walking distance (Go Wildcats!) as are are a lot of embassies including the Australian, Thai and Cuban posts.  

The Belgrano neighborhood is named after the guy who designed the Argentine flag, so it’s kind of like living in the Betsy Ross neighborhood, if there were such a thing.  The neighborhood has a lot of cafes and shops and is probably way too cool a place for Mark to be living.  Hay muchos hipsters.

So after spending a week or so going a block or two in each direction in the neighborhood, Anne and Mark took H-Bomb to the jardin zoologico (or “zoo”).  This place is located in the middle of the city and has been in business since the 1880s, so some of the buildings have some age to them.  Being in the middle of the city and being that old has pros and cons.  On the con side, some of the exhibits are too small for the animals in them, which is no good.  On the pro side, the animals are very, very close to the visitors.  Mark probably has not ever been as close to a rhino, hippo or tiger as he was at the jardin zoologico.

Dad, seriously, the rhino is right behind us!

Among the unique features of this zoo are the Patagonian mara.  Described by Mike Gossman as a “rat-dog-kangaroo mix,” this little guy is native to Argentina and pretty docile.  As a result, they let them run around free range in the zoo.  Go figure

Mara on the left.

Another fairly unique feature is how the zoo gets the patrons to pay to feed the animals.  In a classic case of “If you can’t beat them, get them to pay you for doing what you were going to do anyway, the zoo has eliminated most of the “don’t feed the animals” signs, and instead sells approved food for the animals near selected animal enclosures.  The patrons can then buy little bags of food and feed the animals the food the zoo would have paid for otherwise.  Genius.  

H-Bomb getting scammed

Anne, Mark and H-Bomb fell for this scam at the sea lion exhibit and bought about 20 pesos worth of fish.  As they were preparing to throw the fish parts to the sea lions, H-Bomb got bored and chucked his bottle into the pen instead.  Fortunately, the sea lions recognized that this was not food and cast it aside.  (the zoo worker told us that this happened all the time - kids chucking bottles at sea lions is now the #3 cause of sea lion annoyance in the world - *the more you know...)  Unfortunately, we now had the attention of several pretty annoyed and hungry sea lions.  Mark clumsily cast the 20 pesos worth in the general direction of the sea lions, but failed to satisfy them as those who were not fortunate enough to catch some fish began barking.  To avoid further calamity, Anne, Mark and H-Bomb sulked away and pretended that the kid next to them had been the culprit.  Not their proudest moment, but effective...