Trip to the Zoo (The Epcot Center of Bogota)

On Wednesday we all took a trip to the Jaimie Duque Parque. It was a ~45 minute drive from Betty's Place to get there. Jorge Rico and his wife Patricia drove us in 2 separate cars.
Jorge and Patricia are pictured below. The picture to the left is the building at the entrance to the park. Pretty impressive structures and landscaping.



We were told that the founder of the park (Jaime Duque) was a pilot of the plane pictured below in the 1960's and made flights from Bogota to France.

Here is a note from Jaime to all that attend the park.

Translation is something like:
"I leave it in your hands this great park, Colombia for glory if you can keep it - I implore to be supreme above all, to continue giving their blessings - If you have more lives, more lives consagraria to serve my homeland. Jaime Duque"

Here is some of my finer photographic magic ..., I am helping to hold the 100 foot ball in the air ...
I know, I'm a dork ..., I just couldn't resist.




There was a replica of the Taj Mahal on the property. It was pretty impressive. Apparently Jaime Duque lived on the top floor towards the end of his life where he could see all of the people enjoying the park he created.




Here are a few photos inside the Taj Mahal. It was much larger inside than I expected. On the walls of the first floor they created replicas of many of the worlds most famous paintings. They were painted on small ceramic tiles and then placed on the wall. Most of the paintings were approx 10' tall.



Here is Jackie and the bambino strolling around the park.


Here is Mark Bechtel (to the right wearing sun glasses in green jacket, slightly blocked by another person) and his wife Laura. They were celebrities on this day. One of the groups of students in the park came up to them and asked to get a picture with them. There were like 25-30 kids swarming around them. We think the kids thought they were Brangelina (Brad & Angelina Jolie). Mark and Laura are adopting Gianna, a 7 month old baby girl.


Here is the entrance to the Zoo portion of the park.



Some Monkeying around ...



This guy kept coming over to the edge of the water and checking us out, and making noises..., hopefully they aren't like the Florida Zoo monkeys that swam off of their island and got away (happened a few months back). They aren't supposed to be able to swim, but the ones in Florida figured it out.





The Tigers were very impressive but it was hard to get a good picture with all of the fencing in the way.


Here's a good shot of a Jaguar, quite an impressive animal. They have some stare.