Doha Zoo

Visiting the Doha Zoo was quite an experience. The first visit had to be abandoned. The Zoo was closed during the heat of the day and we arrived just in time to see the gates shut. No worries, we retired to the air conditioned mall, a blessing given the heat, and had coffee.

Visit two was more successful. It was a lovely afternoon, not too hot, and the zoo had lots of families wandering, under the shades, around the cages. I was amazed at how close we could get to the animals, even the big cats. They were behind mesh, but still close to the fence. The mesh meant the photos of the lion pacing weren't good enough to include here.

The first photo I took was after an interesting pantomine. The photo is not so good but note the hat, the chimpanzee with the straw, the chips and the small boys hand on the left hand side. As we watched, the boy tried to feed the chimp some chips and dropped the bag. When he leaned over to retrieve the chips his hat fell off. The clever chimp tried to get both the chips and the hat and after his first efforts failed, he found the straw and used it to drag and flick the hat towards him.

He was successful and scooted up and down the cage with the hat in hand trying to put it on his head. The boy cried and wanted his hat, his mother was disturbed not knowing what to do and I had to hold back from laughing loudly, it was very funny to watch. The chimp was tormenting the child and it sounded like he was laughing too. I got some shots of him with the hat but the cage made them not clear enough to include here.

People watching was as interesting as animal watching and it was great to see families out in force with their children, dads and mums and maids all enjoying the outing. The photo of the families with the elephant was chosen because no people could be identified, very important in the Muslim culture.

I loved the giraffes, so majestic. I also was fascinated by the snakes and scorpions. They were thankfully behind glass. I have some photos but again not good quality. We wandered for a couple of hours, enjoying the ambiance of the place and being pleasantly surprised by the condition of the animals. I had been warned it might not be such a good place to visit but it turned out to be an excellent day out finished with some raspberry sorbet to beat the heat and a comparison of photos.