Trip to Loro Parque
LORO PARQUE
Sunday morning, 10:00 o`clock, the main entrance to the Loro Parque: 5 adventuresome excursionists meet for a ramble through Tenerife`s biggest tourist attraction.
The entrance is built in form of a Thai temple adjoining a huge pond that is filled with hundreds of white, orange and black coloured koi carp to complete the Asian picture.
Following the neat narrow path slightly uphill, we arrived at the gorilla enclosure. Through huge plate-glass windows we could watch the group, among them two youngsters and a silverback who sat right in front of the window watching his family.
We continued our walk through nicely maintained groves, passing wonderful lawns with a few South African Crowned Cranes strolling along and finally arrived at the world`s largest “Penguinarium”.“Planet Penguin” is the largest and most modern penguinarium worldwide. First, we passed the huge enclosure of the endangered Humboldt Penguins that usually live in small colonies along the coast of Chile and Peru. Then we arrived at a real colony of King Penguins, Macaroni Penguins and Chinstrap Penguins. They live on a little island surrounded by water with several tons of snow being showered down on them each day. The whole room was almost completely shaded since it is winter time in the Antarctic at the moment and there`s almost no daylight. This enables the animals to live in a natural-like environment and live their lives according to their natural rhythm.
On our way out of this breathtaking penguinarium we passed an almost 9 metre high glass tube filled with a shoal of thousands of Canarian sardines that leave an unforgettable impression on the visitor.
Our small group continued on to see the park's biggest and latest attraction: Orca Ocean. We were fabulously entertained by four orcas that were bred in the Sea World Park in California and just recently brought to Tenerife. With spectacular jumps and other tricks performed together with their trainers, the group offered a wet and cheerful show that, for some spectators in the front rows, ended in a drenching.
We wandered through the spacious terrain; saw leopards, chimpanzees, a white tiger and countless parrots. The birds bordered every path in the park. There is no other collection this diverse to be found worldwide with about 300 different species from the 800 existing. Some of them are on the endangered species list and can`t be found in the wild anymore. The Loro Parque Foundation devotes itself to the conservation of these beautiful animals and arranges for them to be housed in spacious aviaries protected by greenery to minimize stress.
On our way through this wonderful park we also stopped at the Dolphin Show, the Parrot Show and the hilarious Sea Lion Show. Of course we couldn`t miss out on the aquarium with its magnificent underwater tunnel that makes it possible to watch sharks and exotic fish in a beautiful coral reef.
We were totally worn out after almost 7 hours at this popular (and therefore crowded) park – but full of great impressions, pictures and information on nature conservancy.