Fancying ourselves to be botanical garden enthusiasts, we decided to pay a visit to the Jardim Botânico in São Paulo, followed to a trip to the zoo (because we are adults).

Brett spied this very helpful phone adjacent to the entrance to the gardens. Quite an interesting choice. I’m no landscape architect, but I may have chosen a different location. Nevertheless, we successfully purchased our tickets and began our tour.

I saw a very nice looking flower and decided to take a picture. As I got close, I realized that there was a bee on the bush. If you know me personally, you may be aware that bees are not my favorite creatures. However, I decided to stand firm in the face of danger…until the bee came flying directly at me and I promptly retreated. There’s always next time.

We climbed some nice stairs to get to a higher level of the park. Once we got up there, we noticed a very strange noise. It sounded kind of like a hoarse ring-wraith (or something like that). We were taken aback. We ultimately left the area rather confused, and we could hear sound for quite some time as we walked away. I eventually read a sign that informed us that there were certain birds with very loud calls that live in the area. At least I think that’s what the sign said. It was in Portuguese, so who knows.

We saw an intricately-shelled turtle by the pond and stopped to say hello.

After finishing up at the botanical gardens, we took a short walk to get to the zoo. I hadn’t been to a zoo in many years (potentially decades). The first thing that caught my eye was no animal, but a tree. It was a happy tree indeed.

Honestly, I spent a lot of time in the zoo thinking about how these animals probably shouldn’t be in cages. We felt especially bad for the birds. Where can they fly? However, Brett didn’t feel especially sorry for the snakes, and tended to stand his ground. We did see a most unusual creature. The giant anteaters (which I suppose are cousins of the Iguazu niflers) were quite entertaining. Evolution must have been a little high when it came up with this one.

After a couple hours we decided that we had seen enough (including a massive tiger), so we said goodbye to my new favorite trees and caught a ride back to Vila Madalena.