Who knew that Buenos Aires had a full fledge zoo right in the middle of the hippest neighborhood in the city? I noticed it reading through Lonely planet, and I thought it would be small enough for the kids to be able to do in a few hours.

My son was excited about the zoo and was listing off all the animals he wanted to see during lunch. After lunch, the kids sprung off running into the zoo, right toward the pond…with no barriers to keep kids out of the water, great…

We are free, we are free!

The zoo was jammed packed. It was Sunday, so everyone who had a child and anyone who even thought about having kids was there that day. Both my kids were done with the stroller and running loose, so I have to say I didn’t see much animals in the beginning as my stress level was high trying to keep track of both kids (who of course wanted to run in opposite directions) and my husband (who was stopping to photograph every animal or interesting angle he saw). But from what I could tell, it had a great pond for the flamingos with giant Kai Fish in the pond. My daughter desperately wanted to go in the pond, so I spent a lot of time wrestling her away.

A lovely pond right at the entrance

Next up was the reptile house, which was very busy. My son doesn’t like crowds, so he gravitated to the windows that didn’t have a lot of kids. Of course, they also don’t usually have animals up close an Iguana up close, as well as some swimming turtles. My daughter loved sticking her face up to the windows to see the animals up close.

The fascinating inhabitants of the reptile house

Next up we walked and saw the elephant. It was a small elephant, and he stood around the edge so you could see him up close. My son was excited to see him, but his sensitive soul quickly picked up the elephant was sad. I asked him why, and he said it’s because he was a baby and missed his mommy. Cue the aww….

However, the excitement of noticing a playground behind the elephant soon diminished the excitement of the actual elephant. Both kids took off for the sandy play yard, filled with what seemed to be every other kid in the zoo. My son was big enough to push right in with the other kids, but my poor daughter gave me more than a few heart attacks. She wanted to follow her brother, but kept getting knocked around by the bigger kids. And when she went to climb up the hills or stairs on all fours, she kept getting her little hands and head narrowly missed by someone’s larger feet. I was more than happy to leave when my son said he had enough after only 30 minutes or so.

Look mom, a playground!

We soon went and saw a few more animals, including the tapirs (which we know about thanks to Diego), rare double horned rhinos and several types of llamas. At the llama area, as we tried to get my son to pick out which one was Linda the Llama from Diego, he said he was tired and voluntarily climbed into the stroller and assumed the rest position. We headed to the Giraffes but he barely noticed he was so tired. My daughter went into the stroller without much of a struggle. My son was asleep as we left the zoo, and my daughter was asleep by the time we got to our next stop. Time for some adult activity…

Giraffes and llamas and rhinos, oh my!

* All photos taken by Atma Photography