09.08.2005 08:23 - How To Lose An Elephant
So, how do you hide something as big as an Elephant?
Quite simple, really, if you're Cologne Zoo. You build the elephants a massive new Elephant-house, and outside, you give them an area the size of two football fields to play in. (Whilst you're at it, give them a football as well). To keep them a bit interested, you build a sort of mountainous terrain-cum-maze.
Unfortunately, this means that the elephants get lost in it, and hide.
We stood there for about half an hour at the main vantage point, trying to see an elephant. Nothing. Not even a hint of trunk.
The nephew was very disappointed.
Look, I know it's a zoo, and, as I've said before, not every animal particularly wants to spend its days having buns thrown at it by squealing kids, but on the other hand, for the amount we had to pay to get in, we want value for money, and value for money in this case meant a happy little nephew who had seen at least one elephant.
The ultimate irony? We arrived back home, to find a shop directly opposite had hired an elephant and was giving rides. Not that the nephew noticed, as he was fast asleep by then.
