My visit to the zoo

The monkeys made my day.

The Zoological garden of the University of Ibadan is one of the biggest zoo in Nigeria. It's just six 6 minutes away from my hostel.

On this fateful day, I just decided to go see the animals in the zoo. Since I've been in the institution I've never for once visited the zoo. It was our Student union week, so we had a lecture free week.

I woke up early that morning, took my bath and dressed corporately, just to go and visit animals (smiles). I left home exactly 9:00am.

For you to be allowed to enter, you will have to pay a Gate fee

1. Students- Student Identity card + 200naira

2. Visitors 500naira

3. Children visitors (pupils and students) 100naira.

When I got there, I met some guys I knew, they also came to visit to animals. We were checked thoroughly before we were allowed through the gate. Our means of Identification was requested for, to confirm if we were student of the institution. We brought out our identity card and was allowed in. In my mind I was wondering what the checking was about. I couldn't take it to myself, so I asked the security man, he told me that some people might carry poisonous food and give to the animals or even dangerous weapon. Who knows? Some people might be that wicked truly. But he said we can buy anything we want to buy from the shop in the zoo. I got a snacks and a drink for myself.

Some rules were given to us

1. Do not take pictures of the animals in the zoo.

2. Do not move too close to the cage of wild animals.

3. Don't throw any object at the animals.

When he mentioned the rules, I knew deep down in me i would follow other rules but one. Not the picture taking part. We nodded as a means of response (yes) to the rules he gave.

We started our tour by visiting the birds, where we saw different kind of birds. It was my first time of seeing a parrot. I tried talking to it, thinking it will reply me. Because of the stories I've heard of how parrot talk to humans. I still don't believe it tho. We saw the owl, penguin, ostrich, lovebirds, swans and others. I only wrote the names of the birds I remember, there were lot of birds there.

We moved on to the reptiles part. I saw Tortoise, Turtles, Crocodiles and even Rhynchocephalia. The part where I got scared was the snake part. Though they were caged, but I still couldn't move close to them, because I was scared. We say different types of snakes. The net around them has tiny holes do they can't pass through it. I didn't spend much time there because I couldn't look at them in their eyes.

And lastly we went to the mammals part.

I saw a lot of animals that I've never seen in my life. I saw elephants, giraffes, donkeys, horses, camels and lot more.

To the one that gave me the most fun and experience- The monkeys.

There were lot of monkeys in the zoo, in different cages. Some had trees in their cage, they were jumping up and down. When they saw people, they came close to our side. They brought their hands out through the holes in the cage net. They were pointing to the drink in my hand. I was just laughing, I handed it over to one of them and it took it and drank it all. I was speechless, because they were just behaving like humans. We saw the chimpanzee and gorilla as well. They were heavily caged, because they are dangerous.

And lastly to the wild animals. They were also surrounded with thick nets, Inside the net were small cages made with concrete and roofed. I saw a Tiger, leopard and the king of the jungle, the Lion. Beside it's cafe was a lioness with her cub. We were admiring the little cubs when the lion roared. We we all scared, some shouted and ran away, While I stylishly moved back. I wonder how they feed the wild animals. But a little bird once told me that they will be fed with little animals.

It was fun that day, as we were going back to the gate side, we passed by the monkeys, we waved at them and they waved back at us.

I checked the time and it was 3:20pm already. We had to leave, we've had enough fun. I'll be visiting the zoo another day.

Thanks for reading 🙏☺️

N:B All images in this article was shot by me.