Every summer London Zoo kindly opens its doors on Friday evenings, allowing adults to enjoy the menagerie of animals on display. No children, no prams, no school parties and the only queues are those for alcohol and (for the cheaters) food stalls.
It’s an excellent idea and with a few friends a wholly wonderous and fun night was had by all! Highlights included baby tigers! A baby sloth! Countless glasses of wine! Seahorses! A Toucan! Cider! Penguins! Face painting! and unique magical moments that you wouldn’t have expected.
But the best part of the day was housed in the first enclosure that we visited, Gorilla Kingdom!
Meet Kumbuka…
… Lord of his house, majesty to his hareem of females… And the most miserable of all the animals at London Zoo! I’m pretty sure he hates all the other gorillas, I’ve visited him twice in the last year and both times he’s pretty much sat on his own as far away from his ‘family’ as possible.
They say that when you look in to the eyes of a primate, you can see the emotion and soul of a person and not just some mindless animal. This was something I agreed with. Staring in to Kumbuka’s eyes, I could almost feel his emotions, he was communicating with a human-like… apathy, a look of… ‘I can’t stand that cow out there! If she tells me to clean up my nest one more time..! What was I doing offering her my last Rolo all those years ago??’
And then he, as most of the men in the world would do, he sat down and started checking his baby making equipment, this guy was one of us… until… he started picking his nose with the exact same hand. The crowd groaned in unison and Kumbuka was not impressed. The high pitched squeal of my friend sent him over the edge and he quickly jumped up and smashed is hulk-like fists against the window before storming off. ‘SOD YOU ALL!’
Thank God for the plated glass, protecting us from this giant whom my friend had clearly pissed off. And zero thanks to the keeper who in timely fashion mentioned that earlier in the week, Kumbuka had cracked one of the other windows when he threw a stick at it… We left promptly afterwards!
A wonderful evening that will rank highly in my list of places to must dos. It would’ve been perfect if the malagasy giant jumping rat was up for entertaining too! Enjoy!
Sausages, Rice and Gravy 