Santa Barbara Botanical Garden

After a long morning at the zoo, we still decided to head to the Botanical Garden. There weren't a lot of flowers this late in the very hot season but the trails were nice and Andrew found lots of lizards to photograph. 

Through the redwoods

Very typical . . . me waiting for Andrew to take photos!

Cutie!

A little free library and sitting area.

Murals, Statues, Botanical Gardens - Puerto Vallarta

We returned to Puerto Vallarta for the last couple days of our holiday and again stayed in the old town area along the malecon.

The city has done a great job creating interesting visuals from painted murals, to unique statues, and a temporary exhibit of heart shaped statues featuring paintings that represent various Mexican towns and themes.

This mural of a young boy using a tin can and string to try to communicate with his friend (on his phone) at the other end of the block was my favourite murals. It was not only beautifully done but provided a message that made me think about how our communication, simplicity of life and sense of fun has changed. Not always for the better.

The sheer colourfulness of these next two definitely brightened up the neighborhood.

These next ones, located near the cultural centre, were a bit old and worn but still fun to look at. 

These are just two of the many painted hearts that comprised a temporary exhibit along the malecon.

Andrew and I went for a run/walk early each morning and, while not the best time and lighting for taking photos, it was easier and more pleasant to take photos without many, many tourists also trying to take photos and pose beside these permanent statues. 

Later one morning we went to the botanical gardens which are on the southern outskirts of the city. It's a beautiful place and well worth the visit! It also has a very nice restaurant where we had lunch before catching the bus back to old town.

There are all sorts of warnings about mosquitos and other insects so we brought mosquito spray with us. Neither of us like using it though so we decided just to wait and see how bad they were. While neither of us were bothered at all while walking the trails, we both noticed red welts on our legs a short time later! Thankfully they weren't too itchy.

Andrew is more into taking plant, insect and bird photos that I am, but I did take these few just with my phone.

And just a few more photos of the city. 

Nature in the City

The Hong Kong Zoological and Botanical Gardens is a bit different than those elsewhere. To start with . . . it's free!!

There are several large aviaries, lots of different kinds of primates (gorillas, orangutangs, various types of monkeys and ring-tailed and ruffed lemurs) and a few turtles both very big and very small. A few of the monkeys were very active so we sat for a while, watched and laughed at their antics. It was great to see that they all have quite large areas to move around in.

I didn't take many photos as the aviaries were not ones you could go into and of course the monkey enclosures were cages so both were not ideal for photographs. And I leave most of the flower photography to Andrew for obvious reasons. (Obvious to those who have seen his photos compared to mine!)

In the afternoon we took the Star Ferry over to Kowloon and headed to Kowloon Park. It was extremely busy so definitely wasn't a highlight. We later learned that October 1 is Chinese National Day so everyone was enjoying the holiday.

Starr Ferry, from Kowloon looking back toward Central Hong Kong

Today we took the metro (two different lines) and a taxi out to the Mai Po Marsh Nature Reserve in the New Territories. The Reserve is now a protected area and is managed by the World Wildlife Federation. It was great to get out of the city for a day!

Our guidebook indicated there were several 3-hour English guided tours a day but in actual fact there was a Cantonese tour in the morning and an English one in the afternoon. Since you can only go into the protected area with a guide and we didn't want to wait several hours, we went on the Cantonese tour. Luckily the guide was kind enough to give us a very abbreviated English version at each stop and answer several questions. 

These water lilies were  gorgeous and plentiful! 

The area is extremely diverse with several different wetland habitats including freshwater ponds, mudflats, reedbeds and mangroves. 

Birds we saw included herons (Great Blue and Chinese), black kites, grebes, Chinese bulbuls, cormorants, egrets, ibis and doves.

Between the sweltering hot and humid days and all the walking we're doing, I am sleeping very well at night!!!