I still have more stories lined up about my recent African traveling spree. In the meantime though, it pains me that so much time has passed since my last Joburg post. So here’s a quick one.

Last week I visited the Joburg Zoo for the first time. It’s crazy that it took me this long to go. I live five minutes from the zoo and it’s one of the city’s most popular attractions, especially for locals. I guess I subconsciously thought that every city in the world has a zoo and this one couldn’t be much different. It also seemed weird to visit a zoo in a country like South Africa, where there are so many amazing animals wandering around freely in the wild.

Anyway, I finally went to the zoo and of course I was wrong about my previous assumptions. It’s a great zoo and there are lots of animals there that you can’t see in the South African wild, like mountain lions and spider monkeys and armadillos. (How had I never seen an armadillo before?)

It was a quick visit and I didn’t see everything. But of the animals I did see, the owls were my favorites by far. I’ve never been so close to an owl before and I was blown away by how beautiful they are.

This is a young owl, somewhere between a chick and an adolescent. He was sitting on the ground by the fence and stared back at me quite curiously and brazenly as I shot his photo. Unfortunately I can’t remember what type of owl this is — maybe someone can help. 

Thanks to the person who finally convinced me to go to the zoo and waited patiently while I shot a bajillion photos of owl eyes through a fence. You’re awesome.