Thanksgiving with Grizzly bears and Meercats - the San Diego zoo

Bringing home the bacon
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Its Thanksgiving today and if I am lucky I can bag not one but two roast dinners.

I put my name down for the hostel dinner at 4.00pm and also maybe one when I stayover with Andy this evening. When one is in California I feel it necessary to enjoy the local customs and what could be more American then Thanksgiving?

The kitchen is enormous with a counter that stretched for 15ft and electric frying pans - I've never seen such things before

Giraffes
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But that wasn't too this evening and as I was not here tonight I decamped from Jims-at-the-Beach, although they did allow me to stow my backpack there and participate in the Thanksgiving meal (for $5). A few of the bunch who did Tijuana came in this morning and one English backpacker got stuck the wrong side of the San Ysidro border as he didn't take his passport with him. Yep, been there - done that. I know how you feel mate.

So to kill the hours till the evening I hit the world famous San Diego zoo. The last few days I have been loitering with intent outside its entrance anyway. This time I paid my 12 bucks and entered the enormous zoo. I could have paid more and taken the double-decker trolley around but I thought I'd use my own little legs. First stop was the koala bears - San Diego is the only place outside Australia that they successfully breed and despite having cute faces wielded pretty unpleasant claws.

smart streets of San Diego
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I do like the big pachyderms and the elephant enclosure had a mixture of Indian and African animals. They seemed to be aimlessly milling about - obviously recovering from sleep.On the other hand the rhinos were charging about, riotously charging each other and every solid object to hand. It was a pleasure to see these enormous beasts tear about with such energy. Bear canyon had some monsters. One grizzly had claws so big they made clacking noises as they scraped along the ground. But every time I got interested the tourist trolleybus came up behind me and broke my enjoyment/concentration.

The zoo is built in canyons linked by walkways lined with tropical vegetation. To ascend to the tops of the canyons you moved via escalator often looking down into paddocks and open enclosures. One canyon has a pool fed by a gushing hosepipe - it housed the perpetually noisy and energetic sealions. Their honking could be heard all over the zoo. Gorilla Jungle was the most crowded and the gorillas didn't seem to do much but most disappointing was Big Cat Canyon where the lions were in tiny enclosures. The reptile area was good with giant tortoises and iguanas but the thanksgiving weekend crowds were getting too much for me and I headed for Balboa Park.

The dry yellow lawns made a good place to recuperate and the museums were Spanish revival and were a nice place to nurse a cold Coca-Cola. Then back to the hostel and paying my $5 to be one of the first with the Thanksgiving meal. The owners mother cooked it for about ten people and it was a delicious roast dinner with pumpkin sauce - something I had never tried before. Then my backpack was locked away and I walked the seven or so to Hillcrest and Juan Street where the Vincents have got their house.

Its a lovely area with pseudo-haciendas and roads dotted with palms. By the time I had opened the wrought iron gate to the house I was tired and Andy very generously allowed me to have a bath. Its a lovely house with a colonnade overlooking a small garden with yucca cacti. The kitchen is enormous with a counter that stretched for 15ft and electric frying pans - I've never seen such things before. All in all, I loved staying in a rather wealthy Californian house after long weeks on the road.

And another Thanksgiving dinner? I wasn't that lucky. It was tacos and burgers tonight..