Africa Mia

The latest vacation we took just a few days ago was to Africa Mia and Thermo Mania, Miravalles in Guanacaste. It was with a tour group, so it was an all inclusive trip; Transportation, lodging and food included.

Now, of course I will have to post pictures of this amazing trip (later)... it was our first time to Africa Mia and our second time to Thermo Mania, Miravalles. Picture post to follow.

What I want to blog about is Africa Mia. Ever since I saw the signs for Africa Mia, Ive wanted to go. It advertises itself as an Africa style safari type zoo... well, don't believe the hype.

While Africa Mia was 'fun' and the kids LOVED it, it wasn't at all what I expected. First off, the whole Africa Mia experience was less than 1 hour... the tour itself was so short if I had paid for the entrance itself I would have wanted my money back. LOL!

Second, they have like 6 or 7 types of animals, maybe 8 different species altogether. For a place that calls itself AFRICA Mia (with a strong reference to AFRICA), I thought it would be as close to an African Safari as one could get here in Costa Rica.

If you call yourself AFRICA MIA (which is My Africa), then you should have at least a few famous African animals on hand to wow the crowd. In this, Africa Mia did not disappoint totally, but I would not compare it to an African style safari at all.

For a place called AFRICA Mia, there was not even ONE lion or even an elephant, not even a single monkey. They did have African Zebras and Giraffes though, which was fun to see. Feeding the giraffes the bag of carrots we had previously bought was one of the highlights of the trip, with their long snake-like tongues slipping out of their mouth to grab a carrot and lick your hand.

Fatty and Boobie quite enjoyed feeding the animals (at least the ones we could feed). Aat our first stop we entered a petting style like area where we got up close and too personal to animals that looked a lot like deer). Fatty, so young and unafraid fed these animals like he would feed Foxy, our family dog. Princess was a bit afraid, but I could tell she still enjoyed the experience.

For me, I was in awe for the first part of the tour (just the fact that I finally made it to Africa Mia after all those years of wanting to go). But as the time flew by and we gazed upon more empty grassland than there were animals, my interest waned just a bit. I mean, it was like going to a small zoo. But even the zoos in the states have more animals than the selection offered at Africa Mia (which is big on space, but small on selection).

I loved that I got to see Africa Mia, and I get that they are still in the beginning phases... maybe 2 or 3 years down the road, Africa Mia will truly be able to live up to it's name. But if you are a Gringo used to zoos with tons of exotic animals, maybe Africa Mia will seem almost like a joke to you. Maybe not though. After all, I am still glad I went and will hopefully go again when the selection gets more varied and plentiful.