Temaikén

Okay, I have to admit publicly that Erin found us an excellent apartment, and some of you know why I'm admitting this publicly. For those of you who aren't family members, who had to suffer through our "negotiations," or those of you who talked me into letting go of my Palermo penthouse plan that day at the Elks Club, let me simply say that the penthouse would have required a looong walk to school and back during the winter months as well as a move after the two months it was available to the apartment we ended up with for the entire six months, which among other positive qualities is only about seventy-five steps from the boys' school. And the best part is that in December when Erin's family comes to visit, some of them will be staying in the same penthouse apartment, which means we'll still get to see it and hopefully enjoy the rooftop barbeque grill during a summer month!

(Thanks, Erin, you were right...this time)

But among the other positive qualities is the great landlady we have, Flavia, and her family. Erin and I have become good friends with Flavia and her husband, Fabio, and Quinn and Jack enjoy playing with Alessandro and Anahí, their two children. Though there's the language barrier for the children it doesn't seem to interfere at all with their having a lot of fun together, whether playing Crazy Eights in our apartment or fighting it out on the foosball table on their lanai.

Recently we took a bus out to Pilar, the suburb where they live, to join them for lunch and an afternoon at Temaikén, a large bio-park/zoo nearby. After we got into the park Jack consulted the park plan and decided that he wanted to see the bats as soon as possible. Along the way to the bat exhibit we saw meerkats, flamingos and various other animals, but we all agreed that the bat house was pretty amazing. Temaikén has done a great job of providing what appear to me to be quite authentic and animal-friendly homes for the animals, while making sure that they allow maximum visibility for the public. The aquarium area housed a Sea Life Park style tidepools-to-deep-ocean tank that we observed along a short walk. The deep ocean part of the tank featured two archways, one at the entrance and the other at the exit, that allowed us to walk "through" the tank and watch sharks and other large fish swim by over our heads. Very cool.


There were the usual animals one expects to see in all zoos or bio-parks, such as lions and tigers, and there were other animals like the tapir that we didn't at first recognize, especially because sometimes it didn't allow us to see it from its more recognizable end...

We loved being able to see the animals up close, though, and at the end of the afternoon all of us got to enjoy large cups of ice cream, which left everyone sticky but smiling. Quinn and I had a great adventure, when after finishing ice cream we went to wash our hands at the restrooms. Leaving the building we ran into a family of birds on the walkway and accidentally separated the four chicks from their parents. Actually, we didn't do much to separate them, the two adults actually flew away long before we were at all a threat, leaving their little charges to scatter, chirping loudly and looking around in frantic fear. Feeling guilty and also curious to see if the parents would ever return to rescue their young, Quinn and I sat down a short distance from the bushes where the young birds had hidden, and waited for the adults to return. Sure enough, within minutes the two adults landed on the roof of a nearby building, and after making sure that there were no other scary human predators emerging from the baño, flew the final few feet to the grass below, where the family was reunited and all the chicks were able to squeeze under the mother's (I think it was the female) soft plumage and hide. Coincidentally, at the same moment Erin and the rest of the gang walked up to me and Quinn (but rather than nuzzle under my protective arm Erin gave me Jack's still sticky hand to hold). Reunited, our family happily headed to the exits with Flavia, Fabio, Alessandro and Anahí, the friends that Erin's wise apartment senses found.