What is he, like, king of the guinea pigs?

After visiting Blarney Castle and kissing the Blarney Stone, Tiffany and I headed back to Cork. We had an amazing lunch at a place called The Green Leaf Café. It was a very small cute tea shop down the street from our hostel. The tea menu had well over 50 different kinds of tea. So if tea is your thing, check this place out.

Seafood pie, potatoes and fresh salad- my lunch from The Green Leaf Cafe

Tiffany's lunch at The Green Leaf Cafe

After lunch, the weather cleared up a little bit, so we headed back out and got on a train to go to the zoo. FOTA wildlife park is located just outside Cork and it is a very cool zoo. As the website tells you

"The park is not like an ordinary zoo; here you can come face to face with free roaming animals & birds from all parts of the world. So whether it's a kangaroo that hops in front of you or a ring tailed lemur which jumps down from a tree, each visit is sure to bring its own fantastic memories." Fota Wildlife This means no cages! It was awesome. There are not alot of animals, and the bigger more dangerous ones are behind fences, many of the birds and smaller animals were just loose. I took way to many pictures at the zoo and for those of you who have already made through my massive amount of Ireland pictures, I'm sorry, you will be looking at them again. 

I was about 2 feet away from this Lemur...no bid deal or anything

The lemurs had an exhibit with a little house. There was a whole lemur family hanging out and even though there were no fences holding them in, they gravitated towards their little home. 

Lemur Family

There was an animal that seemed to like to wander around the whole zoo though. It's a very strange looking thing. It reminded me of an animal that my friend, Grace, and I saw in a pet store once called a Cavie. This little guy is called a Mara. Tiffany and I decided that its a mix between a rabbit and a deer. 

I can hear Uncle Tom and some sort of hunting joke but I can't quite figure out what it would be...

There was a pond in the middle of the zoo with a huge variety of birds. You could get some bird food for 50 cents and feed them. So of course I did. It got a little crazy, I was worried one of the swans was going to get violent and hurt one of the smaller birds. 

When I look at these, I hear Feed the Birds(Tuppence a Bag) from Mary Poppins in my head

Anyone who knows me from home, or knows my dog Murphy, will understand my obsession with sausage shaped animals. Well, ladies and gentleman, we saw the best sausage shaped animal and we had no clue what it  even was. It looked like a super-sized guinea pig and all it was doing was sleeping under a tree. It wouldn't move.

For anyone wondering, the title of the blog is a quote from the movie Madagascar

After some internet searching, I discovered that this is a Capybara, the largest rodent species. Its native home is in South America. I also found some people who keep them as pets and let them swim in their swimming pools. 

Maybe extended family, I see some resemblance 

Besides that, the zoo only had a few of the usual animals. There were zebras, giraffes, buffalo, gazelle, monkeys. There were no lions or tigers or bears, but there was a cheetah, behind two layers of chain link fence, no free roaming for him.