It seemed that Timothy had been busy earlier in the morning. After finishing breakfast, we walked out to the front of the hotel, passing the stinky flowers and the huge bowl full of red apples in the lobby, and found a large black limo waiting for us. The car was shiny clean and came with a polite middle-aged driver bearing a full-toothed, gentle smile and a greeting of: “Good Morning, lady and gents.”
Inside the flashy vehicle, on the seat, sat a white plastic bag that contained four baseball caps (tiger icons for Bob and Terry and two yellow giraffe caps for Timothy and me.) The sack also contained our entry tickets for the zoo plus an Overly Koalified zip up hoodie Timothy had purchased for me. We all gushed over them, even the two guys with their slightly embarrassed, uh, thanks, Boss. Then with our caps donned and my hoodie slipped on, we nicely zoo ready.
The drive from the hotel to the zoo wasn’t long, and I was excited to think that we would soon be starting our 100 acre walking trek around the various zones to see the more than 12,000 animals, 4,000 of them rare and endangered species, but Timothy had other intentions. Besides ordering us each hats, he’d signed us up for a private seven hour tour, which is why we got a cute little tram to ride around in. What luxury!
Our guide, who was also the cart’s driver, was Danny. He was a carrot-red head and very tall (six foot-seven?) man in his early thirties who, although his legs seemed to be the longest part of him, capably collapsed into his driver’s seat with the foldability of a transformer toy. He was also a bio-diversity scientist, he told us and said he liked to give monthly tours that allowed him to not only do PR for the zoo, but to get a good overview of the zoo animals.
Once Danny found out we were interested, he was like a beaker of liquid, over-flowing with information. Every question anyone asked lit up his slightly freckled face, and his green eyes seemed to glow as he gave us details and explanations about the zoo and its animals. (Like the fact that the San Diego Zoo had the biggest colony of koalas and successfully breeds them, and that the zoo was the first of its kind, demonstrating a native and environmentally matched, open-aired, and cageless concept for each species of animal.)
I’ll admit that at the beginning, it felt a little strange being scrunched up in a cart with five large males, but I soon forgot about that because Danny was so incredible. His stories and steady stream of knowledge kept us entertained and interested (even though just seeing the animals would have done that on its own, but as I said, such a tour was an additional bonus.)