My wife read somewhere that there’s a “cool” zoo just beside Tiendesitas. A zoo beside Tiendesitas is a bit strange because aside from the fact that Tiendesitas is a place to shop and eat, it’s beside a mall (SM). Also, I regularly pass through the Malabon City zoo, just behind Potrero elementary school along McArthur Highway (that’s a few meters from Monumento, Caloocan), but I never had the desire to go in a zoo, and I’m not really sure if it’s proper to qualify a “zoo” with being cool. The Ark Avilon Zoo made me rethink that.
We parked in front of Tiendesitas, which, at first, wasn’t a good idea because there’s some walking to do towards the Avilon Zoo. I grabbed the first parking slot available because I didn’t know if there are parking spaces right in front of the zoo (yes, there are). Still, the choice of parking turned out perfect because we ended up eating at Tiendesitas, which means we were near where we parked. Anyway, any parking-related stress soon vanished when we saw, and got in, the Ark Avilon. It was a crisp sunny day, and it would have really helped a lot if the weather was at least overcast, so that we could approximate how Moses (or Evan Almighty) felt when he went in his ark. To get in Ark Avilon, you either pay P200 per head (for 1 year-old kids and above) or help build the next ark (kidding about building the ark).
There are crocodiles, although I’m not really sure if they’re alligators. The Animal Channel made me realize that crocodiles are technically different from alligators, but thankfully I need not explain that to my two-year old son who’s the primary reason why I decided to drag my butt out of the couch and go to the Ark Avilon Zoo. There are tortoises and turtles, but it’s not really hard to tell which is which. Then there’s sushi, I mean, fishes, huge ones. (The rest of the article, with more photos, is at Visit Pinas. See also its sister zoo, Avilon Zoo in Rodriguez, Rizal.)
