Our trip is drawing to a close! We have started dreading the day we will leave this tropical paradise. The things we have done have been so different and are a stark contrast to North Carolina. The next thing on the itinerary was the Ardastra Gardens, Zoo, and Conservation Center (Natural Environment)!
The Ardastra includes a zoo and beautiful gardens; we had the opportunity to visit both! The Ardastra Gardens, Zoo, and Conservation Center happen to be the only zoo in the Bahamas! It was started as a nature preserve by horticulturist Hedley Edwards in the 1950's. The plants that live there include coconut trees, mangos trees, orchids, and hibiscus flowers, shown below.
Hibiscus
Orchids
Mangos
Coconut Palm
The gardens were pretty, but the animals were far more entertaining! The Ardastra houses rabbits, pigs, peafowl, iguanas, tortoises, and ring-tailed lemurs! As a group we thought that the lory parrots, Caribbean flamingos, and Bahamian boa constrictors were particularly exotic. Lory parrots, or rainbow lorikeets, are vibrantly colored birds found in Asia and Australia. They eat nectar and berries and are surprisingly territorial when their small size is considered. Occasionally they will even intimidate birds larger than them. We went to a feeding session at 11:00 AM and got to feed the creatures apples right out of our hands!
Rainbow Lorikeet
The Caribbean flamingos are the Ardastra's call to fame. They are common in the Bahamas and have a breeding population of 70,000. They eat shrimp and algae. The species is currently protected by the law because they were hunted for meat in the 1940's and 1950's. This is around the time the Ardastra was established. We went to the Flamingo Exhibit at 4:00 PM to watch them perform! They have been trained to follow instructions, such as moving in a certain direction or turning around. The best part about our trip to the zoo was that we were allowed to go inside the exhibit after the show and take pictures! It was super cool to interact with the flamingos and admire their beauty up close.
Caribbean Flamingos
Lastly, we got to see the Bahamian boa constrictor. It is native to the Bahamas and is thankfully non-venomous. They help get rid of pests by eating rats and other small animals. The three snakes at the zoo were named Chunk, Slim, and Jackie.
Bahamian Boa Constrictor
We left the zoo at about 5:00. Then we decided to play a sport none of use had tried before: squash (sport)!
Squash, we discovered, is quite similar to tennis. It has a specialized court where the players hit a small ball to each other with rackets. However, the ball is bounced off the front wall to your opponent and must be hit back before it bounces twice. Alyssa was pleased to see how similar it was to tennis, her favorite sport! The first person or team to nine points wins a game, and the person who wins three out of five games wins the match. The game got very intense! We played casually since we didn't have two people for singles and four people for doubles. It was kind of awkward but funny to laugh about afterward. Kailynn even got hit in the face with the squash ball five times!
One of the staff at the court told us of the history of squash. It originated at the Fleet Prison in London. The inmates hit balls against the walls, and the activity evolved into a game called "Rackets." The game spread to the Harrow school in England, where the students there modified the game even further. They deflated the ball used to play Rackets and invented the sport Squash as we know it today.
We played squash until about 7:30, then ate dinner at the hotel and went to bed. Our trip is drawing to a close - we are dreading the day when we have to leave!
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