Guadalajara – Zoologico

I’m always a bit scared before I visit a new zoo. Not every country has woken up to the fact that zoos are more than just freak shows. They should be part of an education program and if possible, a breeding program. Zoos that are there to show off the freaky animals are just wrong. Luckily, the Guadalajara Zoo is a modern zoo, not the freaky type.


Getting into the zoo was a bit more problematic than it should have been. The taxi dropped me off at the street level. I then had to walk through a maze of buses and car parks before I found the entrance. Well, what I thought was the entrance! It turns out, I’d actually just bought a ticket to the theme park that is right next door – Selva Magica. It’s a pretty lame park and I don’t do theme parks at the best of times. I wandered around a bit, took a few photos, then went next door to the REAL zoo. Ok, so I’m dumb some times!

Once inside the zoo, it’s a pretty standard layout. Animals grouped by region, with an emphasis on Africa and America. Most of the animals are houses in cage-less displays – using moats or high walls to keep the critters inside. There’s a lot of cages that are a bit on the small side, which is a shame. The little critters have nowhere to run!


The zoo is on the outskirts of town, next to a rather large canyon. The zoo has erected some viewing platforms so that you can look into the canyon. It’s a nice bit of scenery, but nothing to blow your mind. More interesting, was the giraffe display nearby. The baby giraffe there loved poking its head over the fence so you could scratch its head – not very good animal keeping, but kind of fun. I had to giggle when the giraffe stuck its tongue out and tried to eat my camera strap!

There’s even an Australian park of the zoo – featuring kangaroos that roam around so you can pat them. Well, if they feel like it. When I was there, the kangaroos were determined to stay as far from the people as possible. There’s also a walk in aviary of Australian birds – featuring budgerigars and cockatiels from pet shops, rather than their natural colours. Oh well.

More disappointing, however, were the wallabies. There were two wallabies, each in a separate cage. The cages were tiny, completely made of cement and very barren. Poor critters. This is not how animals should be kept.

In a similar vein, were some of the apes and monkeys. A lot of these were kept as single specimens. For social animals, this must be torture. Sure, they look pretty, but that can’t be good for them. The worst was the solo Orang-Utan. She sat on a hill, begging people for food, which the locals were more than happy to supply. So very, very wrong!


The saving grace of the zoo is the “Masai Mara Safari”. They have a special part of the park featuring free roaming African savannah critters. The only way to see them is on a big bus contraption that drives through the area. It was a bit of fun and not something I’d seen anywhere else.

Compared to some of the other great zoos I’ve been to, such as Taronga Zoo in Sydney and the Singapore Zoo, this one is a bit on the crappy zoo. Luckily, this is more because those zoos are so brilliant, rather than this one being rubbish. For a rubbish zoo, go to the one in Shanghai – that was vile!

It’s a fair hike out of town in Guadalajara terms – about twenty minutes. I was running out of things to see and do, so it was worth the trip!