Last week we visited the Animaya Zoo in Merida, Yucatan with Dorota, Mateus and Sophia. Dorota is actually a zoologist who worked at the San Diego Wild Animal Park with the animals and we really appreciated the comments from somebody who actually knew about the animals and the care they were provided.

Animaya is FREE and a fabulous way to spend a couple of hours. There are also the options to ride on a safari or a boat tour of the animals which are also free. You must get ‘tickets’ for these rides to determine what time you will be riding and these lines form at 9:30am for morning tours, and again at 1pm for the afternoon ride. When you wait in line, you will be given the tickets with a return time on them and you must return at that time to take your ride. We did the safari tour by land and were really impressed. You get to see more of the animals this way and they do come right up to the vehicle.

When you enter the park, you will see a very large tower which has an elevator to take you to the top so that you can see the entire park and surrounding city of Caucel with Merida in the distance. This Tower Elevator is also FREE! Phase one of the zoo is completed and they are starting on Phase two and are bringing in more animals to populate the zoo. Animaya is a safari style zoo, where animals are allowed to roam somewhat freely and are allowed a more natural habitat. The animals all looked great and healthy when we were there.

Parque Animaya, opened in 2010 and is still being built today and more animals will be added in the future expansion of the park. They are transferring some of the animals from the old Merida Centenario Zoo to Animaya. I do not know if they are transferring all the animals or not. You can access the zoo by traveling on the Periferico and it is on the south west side of Merida near the city of Caucel. We had tried to visit this zoo before but always managed to get there on days when the zoo was closed, the last attempt was on a long weekend Monday and all the zoos where closed that day much to our disappointment.

Last pictures of the slideshow are my two animals after a lunch at Los Trompos and heading directly to TaeKwonDo practice! Green Lantern and Captain America:)

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