We had a busy week. First, we moved to our new, permanent house. It’s a great house, and we were very excited to move (FINALLY!), but packing, moving, and then unpacking is exhausting.  The embassy’s annual independence day party was also this week (yes, a little belated).  It was enjoyable, and I met some very interesting people. After the long week, we wanted to have a low-key weekend. We had been hearing that there was a playground at the zoo, but we hadn’t found the time to check it out until today.  We’d also been told that the zoo was abandoned. So, we decided to check it out this morning.

The zoo, or the Parc Zoologique de Brazzaville, used to be quite nice. It had dozens of animals, nicely kept pens, and steady funding streams. During the war, most of the animals were transferred to other zoos in the region, and they haven’t been returned. It doesn’t look like the zoo has much in the way of funding anymore. It appeared that they have a staff of two, maybe three people. They charge 200 CFA for adult entry, and 100 CFA for children. 100 CFA is 18 cents.

The grounds are haunting, and would make for a great backdrop for a post-apocalyptic film or an episode of LOST. There are about a dozen sad primates in sad cages, one sad bird of prey, and two sad crocodiles.  The old exhibits where there used to be lions, chimpanzees, gorillas, and antelope are overgrown and empty. It’s probably for the best that the bigger animals aren’t there anymore. Needless to say, it’s was a depressing visit. There was a playground, though.

I don’t know any of the monkey breeds. Please let me know if you recognize any of them.

All but these two monkeys were alone in their cages. These two, at least, had each other.

One of the crocodile pens was deteriorating (well, everything in this zoo is deteriorating), and I think if that crocodile had really wanted to get out, he could have. 

Abandoned exhibit.

The monkey cages are along the pathway, on the left side.

Does anyone know what kind of tree this is???