Post 24: Animais!

Yesterday morning a few people in the group actually went skydiving which was super cool! But for those of us who were not feeling quite as brave, we went to a bird sanctuary called Parque das Aves. It was totally worth the $R 45.We saw a bunch of strange birds that we'd never seen before, including my favorite, the Macuco (which was actually what our safari was named after the other day, Macuco Safari). It barely has any wings at all and can't fly, but it's just so cute. It kind of looks like a giant kiwi bird. They also had a ton of flamingos, a butterfly garden, and a huge cage with macaws. The macaws were so cool because they would fly right over our heads, literally inches from us.

After the bird sanctuary, we met up with the skydivers for lunch. The food was amazing, there was live music, and I got fried bananas. What more could we ask for?

After lunch we went to a biological reserve. The reserve protects both plant and animal life by taking in injured animals or any endangered species. It's also an open reserve, so some animals are able to come and go whenever they please, like the monkeys. They were really cool to watch, especially when they would take coconuts off the trees and try to open them with rocks. Unfortunately I didn't get a video of this, but I did get one of them in the trees. 

My favorite animal ever was the Farao. This tiny little guy looked like a cross between a ferret and a hedgehog and was the cutest thing I had ever seen in my life. I wanted to take it home with me.