Over the weekend, I visited a zoo for the first time in my life, now this might sound unbelievable but, living in a state without a zoo, I never had the opportunity to visit one, and even when I would travel out of my state, a zoo wasn’t exactly topping my list of places to visit, until my last trip.
I recently traveled to Portharcourt Nigeria with my friend @young-boss-karin because she practically begged me to and, most of the days I spent there, I basically stayed indoors but, we decided on Sunday that we would have a girl's day out and since I had never been to a zoo, she decided to take me to one.
I was pretty excited at the idea because watching movies and seeing how zoos were in them seemed like an experience I wanted to have; I am all for trying new things this year and this felt like something to tick off my bucket list.
We planned on going to the zoo around 2 pm, but I got dressed at 10 am because I couldn’t wait to go and my friend even made fun of me because of how I was acting.
We finally left home at 2 and after almost getting lost, we got to where the zoo was located and I can’t even express how disappointed I was at that moment.
After paying to get into the zoo, I was met with a view that didn’t fit my expectations at all; first of all, the zoo was so unkempt with feces everywhere, and a forest surrounding the area which felt unsafe to me.
Now moving to where the animals were kept, you could see that they weren’t being taken care of and some weren’t even moving like the tortoise and the crocodiles.
Most of the cages in the zoo were broken and the whole establishment felt abandoned with about 12 animals in it; monkeys, ducks, birds, crocodiles, a peacock, an ostrich, and some tortoises.
The whole experience felt sad, but we decided to make the most of it by taking pictures and also visiting their museum which was filled with animals that either died or were killed.
While in the museum, I heard of a story about the lions which were electrocuted because they killed the zookeeper, and at that point, I decided that it was time to go.
We left the zoo feeling very dissatisfied and unhappy, but at least I can finally say I visited a zoo and maybe one day soon, I might visit one that makes the experience worth it.
