Sunday was such a hectic day, I feel as if I have spent most of Monday recovering! We started out Sunday morning for the tour of San Diego Zoo, where we were all taken on a specially adapted bus for a tour. At one point we stopped to meet some animals. The dogs stayed outside the enclosure, looked after by Zoo employees, Bob, Wendy & Nat, who were also our drivers and guides.

We got to meet a Pacarana, a beaver like creature, an American Aligator called Gaston and an Emu called Daphne. We got the opportunity to either touch or hold each animal and I was sturck bu how cold the aligator felt, and how soft the feathers were on the emu. The pacarana was my favourite, simply because I have never been that close to anything like it ever before.


Toni Eames with the Pacarana

Later on we had the truly amazing experience of meeting the giraffes. The zoo was interested to see how they reacted with the assistabnce dogs, having already done some preparatory work with their own pet dogs. I don;t think any of us could have predicted how well it would go, at first I hung back, allowing others to feed the giraffe and simply watch with Caesar. I was asked to feed a giraffe and Caesar moved forward with me, being more interested in what I was about to feed it than the creature itself! I was amazed at the length of the tongue and also at the feel of the hair on the giraffe. At one point we were actually sat with the giraffe towering over us, Caesar chose to jump onto my lap but made no attempt to pull me away from the situation.

We finished off the zoo trip with a wander though the monkey trail and saw all different types of monkeys and apes. Caesar was perhaps the most fascinated by the apes, two in particular who caught his eye had him stopped in his tracks and watching with his head slightly tilted as they moved about in front of him.

I was also able to log one geocache after visiting the zoo, so that added to the pleasure even more!

We grabbed a very quick lunch and on to the second tour of the day on a Seal bus, a boat on wheels, where part of the tour is onland and the other on the sea. This was a great way to see San Diego and also to see the seals in the bay.

Monday morning was spent doing a bit of shopping and in the afternoon, we went off as a group for another tour but this time on an Old Town Trolley bus, this took us all over the town and out to Coronado.