Please leave off regarding me as a piece of meat

Aggggh is this not the cutest creature you have ever seen? And yes, we DID get this close to these irresistibly fuzzy animales. You are jealous.

(By the way, picture to the left is (c) Jordan Mynarcik.)


So you are asking yourself how this DOPESAUCE experience was made possible. I will elucidate. Firstly, the goal of visiting Argentina's Lujan Zoo was not attained without incredible feats of Spanish-speaking and various accent-interpreting (including northern-Argentine, Chilean, slang, drunk, and speaking-through-dentures, among other varieties) on the part of Hannah and myself. One wonderful thing I have come to appreciate about home is that when you ask a person for directions and they honestly do not know how to help you, they admit it. Contrarily-wise, Argentines will pretend they know exactly what you're talking about and in turn tell you directional LIES. But, hard feelings aside, and omitting what totaled to approximately six hours of being lost in the tiny BFE northern pueblito of Lujan, Argentina, the trip was amazing.

Secondly, that is in fact a picture of me petting a tiger. No, it's not photo-shopped, I really am an OG. But I couldn't help displaying a certain amount of incredulity and terror on my face, as I'm sure you've noticed. The paws were as big as my hands, baby!!! Crazy.

Thirdly, let's talk about proper Zoo management and organization. Haha. Really though, I'm not trying ta catch a case here, I just thought it was super funny to see camels hanging out with sheep and ducks. So odd. At one point, under the cover of darkness, we watched as a team of two overall-ed men wheelbarrowed a gang of meat chunks over to one of the enclosures, lifted a giant metal door on the wall, and commenced shoveling anatomically-distinguishable chicken parts into the compound. We realized a moment later that it was the Puma cage. Strangely reminiscent of watching Muldoon's team lower a live cow into the Velociraptor paddock in Jurassic Park. So inconsiderate of these animals' regular eating habits. And yet, so badass.


Finally, Holy Crap. Giant lions are seriously stealthy. While we were organizing our group, trying to exit the park and figure out how the hell to avoid getting lost on our trip home now that it was dark, unbeknownst to us the large nocturnal cats were assembling. Imagine you are a friggin Lion, captured from the wild and set up in way-too-small-of-a cage, living on raw chicken all day. You know you wanna attack something. That shit is just in your blood. My advice to anyone who wishes to avoid nearly peeing their pants at a zoo at night is to never absentmindedly find yourself standing next to the full-grown lion enclosure in the dark. I thought I heard something behind me and peered into the darkness of the cage at my rear, when finally I distinguished that, through the shoddy protection of a chain-link fence, a giant-ass lion was staring at my body from a mere few feet away. Um, NOT COOL. Once I discerned his enormous efficient bulk, I slowly moved to my left, then to my right, and watched his head almost imperceptibly follow my movements. Again, just like one's tour jeep breaking down right in front of the T-Rex compound. NOT COOL. So, yeah. National Geographic is real and don't ever lose respect for the wildlife. Ever. Because they want to eat you.

Similar advice from Katt Williams (who is the Bomb) below.