Day 53: Riga

MAY 26 - It is Odette’s birthday! She is now nine years old. Today is set aside to do something she asks about virtually every day, which is to visit the zoo. Riga Zoo is about 30 minutes north of town by tram.

Serval cats, that came out of hiding after a hailstorm we had early in the visit.

I am sometimes hesitant to visit the zoo in countries I travel, because quality varies and its hard to see animals in outdated, rusty cages. Though Riga zoo did have a bit of that, it also had larger, open space cages that granted a lot more mobility for many animals.

There was a lot of diversity of animals, including several types of marmosets, a Pallas cat, maned wolves, and a functioning bumblebee hive in a glass case.

Gray crowned cranes, the national bird of Uganda.

A green tree frog, not sure what type.

A maned wolf. A rather unusual member of the dog family, that normally lives in the central part of South America.

Not sure what animal this was, but there was no sign that said we couldn’t feed it, so we gave it some ice cream.

Returned to Riga in late afternoon, and attempted to find a laundromat. It took an hour to get there by bus from the apartment, and it ended up that they closed early and we couldn’t get anything washed.

Latvia