Safari Madrid

02/November/2008 Find it in: Family Fun

Out of Africa

I took my family to visit Safari Madrid this weekend, it’s located off the A5 near Aldea de Fresna. It takes just under an hour to get there. My 5 year old niece, Daniela, was an absolute angel throughout the drive, after all, an hour can seem like an eternity at that age. I was also accompanied by my 15 year old son Adam and my mother, both of whom were a little unenthusiastic about the day’s excursion. Luckily the weather was on our side (following 4 days of rain in Madrid). When we arrived at the gates Daniela got very excited as she spotted some miniatures ponies which small children can ride at 3 euros a go.

Our first stop was the Reptile House as an exhibition was about to start at 1.30pm. It was bang on 1.30pm but there wasn’t a snake or soul in sight! We asked at the Kiosk if we had perhaps mistaken the time, but in classic spanish style they said that the show started “around” 1.30pm. In fact it didn’t start until 1.50pm by which time a small crowd of adults and children had gathered. I took out my camera to take some close up pics of the snakes, but to my irritation I realised that I had forgotten to put the battery into the camera! Oh well, at least I had my video camera, or so I thought..... turns out that although I had charged it the night before I had stupidly left it switched on and drained all the power. My son came to the rescue and said that we could take photos on his iphone. Hurray for Mac!! (no this is NOT a product placement post!). I have never been one to enjoy animal exhibitions but this one was suitably short and informative and we got to see the snakes up close. We all walked away with some new knowledge on snakes such as Pythons aren’t venomous, they kill by asphyxiating their prey and squeezing them on an escalating scale until they can no longer feel a pulse. and did you know that in Spain there are venomous snakes?

After the show we jumped into the car and headed off towards the “Safari” circuit. The BEST bit. When we got to the gates a group of lamas quickly spotted us and came trotting towards the car. They surrounded us and collectively dribbled all over the car windows, in fact they stuck their snouts so hard to the glass you could see right up their nostrils! For the benefit of little Daniela we thought it would be amusing to feed them so we cracked open the window a peak, just enough to allow the lamas to stick their noses through the top. We fed them on cheeseball crisps that no one had wanted to finish - ... unsurprisingly. They loved the cheeseballs a little too much: it took us 15 minutes to get their heads out of the car window because they just couldn’t get enough!!! and boy oh boy do they have bad breath or what!?

We moved on along the Safari Route and saw a vast range of animals: giraffes, elephants (one was “visibly” a bull

) gazelles, deer, zebra, lions, hippos, rhinos, emus, ostriches, bears, and so the list goes on. I have to mention that besides the bears, tigers, lions and elephants which were fenced off in large parcels of land, the rest of the animals were roaming around completely free within the safari route, including the hippos and Rhinos. The best part of the circuit is the monkey area. The monkeys live in the same enclosure as the hippos and rhinos. Just before entering this section of the safari you are instructed by a park ranger that you must not under any circumstances lower your window, feed the animals or stop your car at any time. If your car breaks down you have to toot your horn. The car in front of us paid absolutely no attention to this and started feeding the monkeys carrots. The monkeys jumped all over their car and as we were not far behind them they jumped onto our car too. We all found this hilarious but I have to confess that my niece did get a little nervous although I could see that she was secretly enjoying it too.

You can spend all afternoon in the safari circuit if you wish but moving along slowly in the car will take you around an hour to complete. Although we didn’t have time to see it, Safari Madrid puts on a birds of prey show once a day with eagles and falcons flying freely overhead. Others who have seen the show have commented it’s well worth seeing, so I intend to go back to Safari Madrid again: soon and do just that. All in all the excursion was thoroughly enjoyed by adults and children alike and I would definitely recommend it for all ages. In my car there were several 4 different generations and each and everyone loved it.
Safari Madrid has special group prices and is open 365 days per year. I would recommend going at any time so long as it’s not raining. In fact Autumn is an excellent time of year to go because there are fewer people. In the summer the Safari Park has an open air swimming pool, and go-karts (at an additional charge). They a couple of cafeterias and a souvenir shop (bit limited in my view).

For those who enjoy shopping you can stop off at Zanadu and do a spot of shopping on your way back to Madrid or go skiing for that matter on the largest indoor ski slope in Europe!
Tel91.862 .23.14
www.safarimadrid.com