A Walk Along the River
We went to the zoo a few days ago. We’d planned to go swimming at Hostivař but it rained in the morning and was cool, so we changed plans. Fine by me. When it’s cool, I quite enjoy the zoo. When it’s hot, it’s sweaty and also, it’s crowded, and depressing, because especially the polar bears and the elephants look miserable, and tempers get short (mine).
Anyway, it did get hotter, but Isabel slept for quite a while, and Sam didn’t behave TOO badly. There was an interesting drama in slow motion between a young, small giant tortoise and an older one. Hard to know what really was going on. All of the big tortoises were scattered about the lawn like rocks, and only one little one off in the corner was moving at all. As he(or she) moved in the direction of one of the others, that one moved his/her body a slight bit to face the little one, who paused, then changed direction.
Now, remember, these are turtles (or tortoises, I’m never sure on that one) and they are slow. It’s like watching Tim Conway.
So, as the little one scampered (relatively) away, the big one slowly raised up on his/her hind legs and gave chase. We lost sight of them when the little one climber over a rock and the big one went after it.
My theory is that the young turtle was bothering his mother, who went after him. But I’m no expert on turtles.
There was a while were it seemed as if it would rain and we hurried to see the kangaroos, because Isabel had woken up and she wanted to see kangaroos, so we wanted to see the kangaroos before it rained. Then we saw the Polar Bear, the Malaysian pavilion which was a bust because almost no animals were visible (so much of every visit to the zoo is spent looking into empty cages), and the seals again on our way out. We had lunch outdoors at the restaurant there.
I’d suggested that perhaps we could walk home, because it actually is possible to do it from there to here and be in green space almost the whole way. I was really surprised when, at the end of the meal, Helen said O.K. We’d been walking all day, I’d stepped on her foot at one point, and long walks are not really her thing, but off we went.
The trail goes along the river but where the bridge goes across to Stromovka, you carry on straight and you wind up on a backwater of the river, where the playground is below Sam’s football training ground, and then walk across a dam and you eventually come to a tunnel under Libensky Most and there you are.
There’s a Trojan Horse, which is a snack stand but they are already closed. There is a kayak run and there was a team training going on.
Isabel said “Look, a boat” and I looked and there was a piece of milk carton, floating in the water, and it did look a little like a toy boat, and she thought that was very funny. I hate it that there are people with such a complete lack of sensitivity that they would see a river as a place to throw a piece of trash instead of as a pristine point of meditation passing unperturbed through the heart of unbearable urban agglomeration, as a flowing liquid symbolic of the march of time, the sweep of human history, the constant forward motion of our aspirations, as a place of beauty to be shared by all. But Isabel thought it was funny. She’s only 3. She can hold off on the rage for awhile.
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