A trip to the Zoo

Tuesday and Wednesday were holidays in Paraguay, so we had some time off.  Tuesday was Dia de la Madre and Wednesday was Paraguay's Independence day.  A few notes about holidays here:

1.  Nobody finds it necessary to warn us in advance.  Saturday morning we had a meeting with the VOICA coordinator, who casually mentioned our two days off this week.  We were so surprised, we didn't believe her and made her call the Principal to confirm.  So basically, we had to mad-dash plan our mini-vacay (no easy task when you have to get other people to make phone calls and travel arrangements for you).

2.  They always put holidays back-to-back.  In April we had the Dia del Maestro (Teacher's Appreciation Day), which backed up to another Encarnacion holiday.  In March the Birthday of Encarnacion was celebrated immediately preceding Holy Week.

3.  There are a lot of holidays.  See #2.  Our ten paid holidays are puny in comparison.

As our hastily planned mini-vacay to the San Rafael Nature Reserve was cancelled due to inclement weather, we settled for an afternoon trip to the zoo with Clara, Virginia, and her hijos, Facundo and Alejandra.

Definitely not what we are accustomed to.  Let's just say, B didn't need his binoculars.  See for yourself.

The zoo is not run or funded by the government, rather it is the product of one guy with a lot of money and a penchant for keeping exotic animals in tiny cages.

Thoughts:

1.  It smelled soooo bad.
2.  You could actually see the animals going insane.
3.  My emotions ran from sad to angry and back again.
3.  I kind of want to put the zoo's owner in a cage with one of the leopards.
4.  No worries, I emptied a bottle of hand sanitizer on Clara when we left.