Have you ever wanted to pet a leopard? What about cuddle a chimp? Or feed a crocodile? Well, if you ever find yourself at Musee Vivant in Burundi, you can do all of those things.
While we were in Bujumbura, Burundi, my brother-in-law and sister-in-law took us and their kids to the local zoo, which features animals from East Africa.
Bujumbura’s zoo, Musee Vivant (“Living Museum”), doesn’t have the red tape or safety precautions of zoos in the States.
Part of that is really fun–nobody at a zoo in the U.S. would allow you to pet a big cat with gigantic fangs.
It also means that you do have to use your own common sense to decide what is or is not a good idea…like maybe if you’re wearing a ponytail, don’t snuggle the baby chimp. If it gets curious and yanks on your hair–well, there goes your scalp and your face.
Fortunately, my nephews don’t have ponytails.
As you can see, there’s a good reason why my sister-in-law calls this “The Petting Zoo of Things That Should Not be Petted.”
The Musee Vivant also offers a cultural element. Our tour guide took us through an exhibit showing recreating a traditional Burundian elder’s home.
There are several of these houses clustered together. One big house would be for the elder, and each of his wives would have a smaller version.
Our three-year-old wasn’t actually that impressed by the animals in the zoo–he’s not much of a predator person and I wasn’t too keen on letting him watch the crocodile hunt down a live guinea pig, anyway. He was more interested in finding sticks and drawing in the dirt with Auntie Joy.
But he did love walking through the houses and trying to climb this gigantic kapok tree with his cousins.
What about you? Which animals would you pet? And would you climb that tree? Let me know in the comments!
Where over the world, say where,
You find an island there
So lovely small with nations free
With people French and Dutch
Though talking English much,
As thee Saint Martin in the sea ?
O sweet Saint Martin’s Land
So bright by beach and strand
With sailors on the sea and harbors free
Where the chains of mountains green
Variously in sunlight sheen
Oh I love thy Paradise,
Nature beauty fairly nice.
Oh I love thy Paradise,
Nature beauty fairly nice.
How pretty between all green
Flamboyants beaming gleam
Photo credit: April Jaye
Of flowers red by sunlight set
Thy cows and sheep and goats
In meadows or on the roads
Thy donkeys keen I can’t forget
O sweet Saint Martin’s Land
So bright by beach and strand
With sailors on the sea and harbors free
Where the chains of mountains green
Variously in sunlight sheen
Oh I love thy Paradise,
Nature beauty fairly nice.
Oh I love thy Paradise,
Nature beauty fairly nice.
Saint Martin I like thy name
In which Columbus fame
And memories of old are closed
For me a great delight
Thy Southern Cross the night
May God the Lord protect thy coast!
O sweet Saint Martin’s Land
So bright by beach and strand
With sailors on the sea and harbors free
Where the chains of mountains green
Variously in sunlight sheen
Oh I love thy Paradise,
Nature beauty fairly nice.
Oh I love thy Paradise,
Nature beauty fairly nice.
In 1958, “O Sweet Saint Martin’s Land” was composed by Father Kemps to celebrate the island of Saint Martin. Today, it is the anthem of both sides of the island. The song reflects the natural captivating beauty of the island and the spirit that lives on in the hearts of its inhabits through the years.Join us as we celebrate Saint Martin’s Day on November 11! To hear the song, click here.
Sint Maarten’s Parotte Ville Bird Park is one of those secret gems tucked away in the island’s interior. You won’t find a website for Parotte Ville, but word of mouth travels fast enough to keep the visitors coming in. I’d been dying to go for months, but I wanted to take some kids with me. After all, kids make everything more fun. I used fall break as an excuse to take this Brother and Sister to explore Parotte Ville. Come with us and discover the magic of tropical birds in paradise!
Directions: From Philipsburg, drive north into the Belvedare region, like you’re headed to Orient Bay Beach. The bird park is on Bishop Hill Road.
Experience:
Bird Enclosure
Note to self: Parotte Ville is closed on Mondays. We ended up visiting the zoo on Monday instead, and made Wednesday our Parotte Ville day. As soon as we stepped in the gate, we were greeted by George, who gave us an awesome tour of the park. He began by introducing us to each species and handing us cups of bird seed.
I was glad to get some into on the birds before heading in. The kids patiently listened, but they had already caught a glimpse of the birds and were about ready to jump out of their skin with anticipation! The birds seemed pretty excited, too, and peered at us expectantly through the wire mesh of the door.
Once we were in, it didn’t take long before the birds began to gather on our seed cups. George introduced us to Alex, a ringnecked parrot. He’s one of the birds with the most personality, and he even comes when called. Sister spent most of her time at the park hunting for Alex.
Besides Alex, there are plenty of other birds to see! These colorful conures were my favorite. They were the most friendly, and were perfectly content to sit on our cups and snack. As you can see, they are also pretty photogenic.
Brother is a perceptive kid, and he wanted to check out all the different types of birds in the park. To his disappointment, not all of them wanted a bite of his bird seed. He decided they were still cool to look at, though. We both were awed by how beautiful the birds look when they fly. At one point, nearly every bird in the enclosure took flight as if on cue and soared clockwise around the park. It was stunning to see the parrots fly through the air. They fly so differently than other birds– almost like dancers in the air. I could hardly believe that I wasn’t standing in the middle of an untouched Brazilian jungle. Brother asked me if I snapped a picture of that moment, but it wasn’t the picture taking kind of experience. It was the kind of experience that you just have to be present in and enjoy as completely as possible.
You don’t find stuff like this where I come from. It’s amazing to get to hold parrots and see these birds up close! It teaches kids to appreciate nature and to treat wildlife with respect.
Herb Garden
I was interested in all the plants growing in the enclosure, so George showed me around. He grows a lot of herbs with healing properties, along with other vegetation. He plucked leaves from many of the herbs and let me smell them. Some I know and use, like lemongrass, but others were totally new to me.
Museum and Playground
As if the bird enclosure wasn’t cool enough, Parotte Ville also features a great playground and a museum. Sint Maarten doesn’t have a lot of playgrounds, so finding one is a pretty huge event. Sister was excited to play, and Brother was fascinated with the museum. Eventually, Sister decided to see what all the fuss was about and found the museum pretty awesome, too.
George gave us a tour of the museum. It’s his private collection of Saint Martin history, which he gathered from his family heirlooms and household items. There is another heritage museum in Philipsburg, which I haven’t visited yet, but this one has a different twist. George told me that the Philipsburg one focuses heavily on indigenous Arawak history. “But who’s going to tell my family’s history?” he pointed out. “I have to start somewhere.” I’d say this is a pretty darn good start.
The kids learned about such ancient artifacts as rotary dial phones and film cameras, and I enjoyed seeing the coal-heated irons and the pictures of local fruits that hang on the walls. Brother knew the uses of a lot of the items, which impressed George. Although he did think the washboard was a cheese grater. When we left, brother commented, “The past was good, and now is good… I think the future will be good.” I have to say that I, for one, am glad we live in an age with washing machines instead of washboards. But I do appreciate history and former ways of life, and I’m glad he does, too.
Of course, we couldn’t leave without trying out the Flintstones car. By the end, the kids were happy but pretty pooped. We said good-bye to George, Alex, and the birds and headed to baseball practice. Later, Brother wrote a story about Parotte Ville.
If you’re in Sint Maarten, make a point of spending a morning at Parotte Ville! There are tons of awesome things to do on the island, but this is one of my favorite. I’m already planning my next trip.
The Sint Maarten Zoo just keeps getting better. How, you ask? Well, for starters: water features, gardens, and renegade pigs. Although that last part isn’t quite intentional.
Since I moved to the island of Sint Maarten a year ago, I’ve been to the zoo four times. Today’s visit was definitely the best. The zoo has put a lot of effort into improving the grounds and making it look beautiful.
About four months ago, I was part of a volunteer crew through American University of the Caribbean that helped the zoo clean up some weeds and leaves and such. Every time I’ve done a project like that in the past, the place looks just as weedy a month later. Not so with the zoo. In fact, it was even cleaner than the way we left it after our clean-up day. The areas we weeded had become landscaped paths and nice gardens. It’s always looked nice, but today everything looked excellent.
I brought three kids to the zoo today. One of them, Aloha, had never been before. His reaction to the animals was priceless! He really didn’t have very good luck at first, though. As soon as we walked in, one of the parrots in a cage flew at him and scared him half to death! It wasn’t aggressive, just curious, but he’d never seen such a big parrot before. Then, he was so loud and excited that he bothered a crabby monkey, who flung a fistful of food at him. Of course, this only made him more loud and excited.
There’s a little white cockatoo that says “hello” whenever you walk away from it. Aloha walked past the bird, and it called out, “hello!” He returned the greeting, “hello!” and spun around to find the person who shouted at him– but there was no one there! He was surprised to discover that it was a bird talking to him. I couldn’t help but laugh at the confusion on his face!
The littlest one was quite enthralled with the huge shipwreck playground. It’s the biggest playground on the island, and it’s a really good one. No only does it feel like a real ship, there are also a lot of ladders to climb and tunnels to crawl through.
The zoo recently added another play area, too. This one has trikes, hammocks, and tunnels. It was a good place to stop and eat lunch. Aloha said he was going to live right there forever.
The oldest one was most interested in the iguanas. There are a lot of these lizards at the zoo! The green iguanas that run free all over the island are actually not native to the island. They used to be limited to a private pond, but escaped during a hurricane. They managed to eliminate all of the native iguanas and take over the island.
As you can see, they like to hang out at the zoo!
I gave the kids some bread so they could feed the iguanas. The little one just tossed the bread at them and liked watching them eat, but Aloha and the oldest one enjoyed feeding the lizards by hand.
The oldest one ran into his friend who works at the zoo. His friend’s task for the afternoon was to round up all the intrusive iguanas and put them in the iguana exhibit for the time being. The wild iguanas bother the other animals and eat their food.
Of course, the oldest one thought that iguana wrangling sounded like fun, so he joined the hunt. I took Aloha and the little one to check out the new splash pad. It’s pretty cool! They have a bunch of kiddie pools and some big sprinklers. There weren’t too many kids there, so they had plenty of space to play.
I hadn’t thought to bring dry clothes, so we decided to walk around the zoo again to dry off. Aloha liked the caiman. I liked the rabbits. The little one liked the mules, even though you can’t tell from this photo!
Actually, the little one was more interested in the swing than the animals at this point. Although he was still pretty enthralled with the talking cockatoo.
The most exciting part of the day came just before we left. Somehow, a pig wandered out of the farm animals exhibit. I saw him walk past me, and I wondered if he was supposed to be running free. He didn’t seem to be bothering anyone, so I just watched him root around in the dirt. Before long, I saw the zookeeper searching for something. I asked him if he was looking for a pig and pointed where the pig had gone. He went jogging after the pig, and a minute or two later I saw the pig fly past me the other direction with the zookeeper and his son hot on its heels! Aloha and the little one decided that this was great fun, of course, and so did every other kid in the zoo. Before long, there were seven kids, a zookeeper, and me all chasing down Houdini Pig. Aloha ended up cornering the pig so the zoo keeper could catch it. He was very pleased with the whole episode. After all, it’s not every day that an animal escapes at the zoo and you get to help catch it.
The oldest one was having so much fun that he decided to hang around the zoo after I left with the little kids. He stayed for a few more hours to volunteer, which was pretty cool of him. He’d been very helpful with taking care of the kids during the trip, too.
We were all pretty happy with our afternoon at the zoo! It’s nice that the Sint Maarten Zoo is always making the zoo better and more fun. At $10 for adults and $5 for kids, it’s a pretty affordable treat that includes animals and play time. Both of the younger kids begged to go back again the next day! Perhaps another zoo day will be in our future.
When Central Park was conceived in 1858, it was designed to be filled with all sorts of interesting amusements for everyone. This spirit lives on in the Central Park Zoo, a small animal park filled with creatures you’d never expect to find in New York City.
During my trip to New York City last summer with my family, my parents and I had a single day left in the big city once my sister left town. We could pick one thing to do in the afternoon, so after careful thought, we chose the Central Park Zoo!
We actually got there only an hour before closing time, but we thought it was still a good idea to look around. The tickets were $12 each, which was totally worth it for the hour.
The first thing we saw was this seal. I’m going to wear my emotions on my sleeve here for a bit and tell you that I’m really really sad about how this picture turned out. I had the camera on the wrong setting and forgot to change it back to auto. If it was on the right setting, you would have seen the seal on the rock and the NYC skyline behind him. I tried and waited for another chance at the shot, but the seal got all excited about being watched and decided to swim all over the place instead. As a brief caveat, if any of my readers know how to fix this photo, I would be eternally grateful.
This bear was the star of the zoo. He was an old, mellow bear, and he came right up the the window where all these little kids were pressing their little faces against the glass. One little boy had his hands on the window. The bear lifted his big paw and placed it directly on the little palm on the other side of the glass. It was the most precious moment.
At the center of the Central Park Zoo is a pond surrounding an island. The island is home to snow monkeys, which were cute but less than polite.
The Tropic Zone is the best part of the Central Park Zoo. It’s like a huge tropical enclosed aviary! There are even two floors to it, and an aquarium. It feels so real, like you actually stepped into a jungle or a rain forest. I think that if I lived in New York City, i’d visit the zoo all the time in the winter just so I could get warm and balmy here.
It also has a lot of cool animals, like a iridescent blue poison dart frog and this ring-tailed lemur.
Our hour at the zoo ended much too soon. It’s a pretty small zoo, but we could have entertained ourselves there for hours. If you’re in New York City, be sure to check it out! It’s a nice, inexpensive NYC experience for the whole family.
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P.S. Did you see that I added Pinterest buttons to my photos? Be sure to pin a couple of your favorite images before you head out!
Safari Niagara is probably the coolest zoo I’ve ever been to. The cost of entry gets you a look at hundreds of animals, interesting shows, access to the go-cart course, and even a huge ropes course. It’s a great place to take a huge group of kids. Here’s 14-year-old Theo from the island of Sint Maarten on Safari Niagara and his experience there.
Today we went to Safari Niagara which is a zoo. First we saw a bird show that had owls, hawks, and falcons.
A lady showed us different species of birds.
And then I saw more animals.
I saw tigers, bears, lions, parrots, macaws, foxes, tapirs, and camels.
When we reached, we took a train and saw flamingos.
I think at first we couldn’t look at one bird because a skunk went inside the cage.
By the rhino’s exhibit I rode a buggy whilst watching emus.
Then we ate hot dogs and hamburger and I climbed a huge jungle gym.
Thanks for sharing your journal entry here, Theo! We certainly had a fun time at the park. Be sure to share and leave an encouraging comment for Theo to read!
