The Rolling Safari tour at the Wild Animal Park is really fun! You get to ride around on an off-road Segway X2 with a tour guide who talks about the animals that are within view. A Segway can potentially travel at 12.5 miles per hour, but the tour speed is set to 8 miles per hour. Eight miles an hour might not seem too fast, but our group went on the tour on a day when it was 100 degrees, and we didn’t even notice the heat because of how excited we were!
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Alicia Valencia is the San Diego Zoo’s 2008 Arctic Ambassador to the Polar Bears International Leadership Camp. She is spending a week on the tundra in Churchill, Manitoba, Canada, watching polar bears and teaming up with other dynamic teens to become leaders for polar bear conservation. Read her previous blog, Polar Bear from my Bunk Bed Window!

Last night we finally got to experience the beauty of the Northern Lights! At around 10 p.m, a shimmering ribbon of green and red lights danced across the sky. The colors changed from red to green in seconds, curling their way over our heads toward the moon. I cannot believe I was able to experience such a magical phenomenon in the sky. Maybe we will get lucky and see them again. (This photo is not of the Northern Lights, but of the incredible sunset we viewed from the back deck of the Tundra Buggy Lodge.)
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Alicia Valencia is the San Diego Zoo’s 2008 Arctic Ambassador to the Polar Bears International Leadership Camp. She is spending a week on the tundra in Churchill, Manitoba, Canada, watching polar bears and teaming up with other dynamic teens to become leaders for polar bear conservation. Read her previous blog, Surviving and Thriving on the Tundra.

While writing this blog, the feeling in my hands slowly returns. About five minutes before writing, I was outside in the cold snapping photos of a magnificent sunset overlooking the tundra landscape. I can see the horizon steadily turning from red to midnight blue through the reflection of the water as I continue watching the landscape from the inside of the lounge car. Over my shoulder the moon shines high in the sky above the bay. I am very excited for tonight because the sky is so clear that we may see the Northern Lights!
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Alicia Valencia is the San Diego Zoo’s 2008 Arctic Ambassador to the Polar Bears International Leadership Camp. She is spending a week on the tundra in Churchill, Manitoba, Canada, watching polar bears and teaming up with other dynamic teens to become leaders for polar bear conservation. Read her previous blog, San Diego Zoo Arctic Ambassador Surrounded by Polar Bears!

Today was our first full day on a Tundra Buggy! After lunch, we loaded the mobile Tundra Buggy and set out to look for polar bears! We didn’t find any bears for a while, so I was able to enjoy the beautiful landscape of the tundra. The ground of the tundra seems bleak and sparse at first glance, but looking more closely, I noticed how many colors are incorporated into the grasses. The ground is splotched with patches of crimson and royal purple. There are thousands of ponds sprinkled across the land like puddles on a bumpy road. At every opportunity, we tried to identify ducks and birds located around the ponds.
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Alicia Valencia is the San Diego Zoo’s 2008 Arctic Ambassador to the Polar Bears International Leadership Camp. She is spending a week on the tundra in Churchill, Manitoba, Canada, watching polar bears and teaming up with other dynamic teens to become leaders for polar bear conservation.

Friday October 10, 2008, 10:21 pm
The past two days have been an incredible journey of new experiences, great opposites, and fun explorations. Before I arrived, I couldn’t imagine how different life on the tundra for five days would be in comparison to San Diego life. But now, after feeling the striking temperature drop from San Diego’s comfortable 98 degrees on Wednesday, I feel I’ve been able to notice the unique beauty of my surroundings. Throughout the day I have learned to love the way the wind makes the grasses ripple like the moving water. I have come to appreciate the violent waves of the Hudson Bay, crashing on the jagged coastal rocks. But of all my newfound treasures, I am in awe of a polar bear’s behavior in the wild.
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Cusco, Department of Cusco, Peru
Unfortunately it’s been over a month since I wrote my last blog (see Studying Bears in Peru). I’m sorry for the delay, and I’ll try to post more frequently in the future! Due to problems with the generation of hydroelectricity for Quince Mil, the town is subject to rolling blackouts, which means that my Internet access is reduced by about 50 percent.
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Do you think you have what it takes to be a zookeeper?

A zookeeper’s day starts bright and early by coming into the San Diego Zoo and checking on the animals to make sure they are doing fine. Each animal has a specific diet that they have, so the zookeepers have to make sure that the animals are given the right diet. During the day, animals are put on exhibit for the public to see. Another part of a zookeeper’s job is to record how the animals are doing. This is so they can make sure the animals are doing fine, growing, and staying healthy. A zookeeper’s day does not end until all tasks are complete and the animals are doing well.
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The nights are getting cooler here in San Diego, and because of its location, the Giant Panda Research Station at the San Diego Zoo is coolest of all, literally and metaphorically. It’s always around ten degrees cooler here than up at the Zoo’s entrance and it stays cooler longer into the day because of the shade of the canyon walls, the trees, and the surrounding bamboo.
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If you’ve ever walked through Cat Canyon at the San Diego Zoo, you’ve probably seen the fossas that live there, and maybe even noticed the new fossa kits that recently moved there. But did you know that we have a lot more fossas than can be seen on exhibit?
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Once airborne, you look for two things: tiny blackish-gray rocks bunched under trees or moving across the landscape. That’s how you spot elephants from the air. They’re about the size of tiny houseflies when you see them from the airplane. The landscape varied from lush flood plains sandwiching rivers to low desert-like shrubs scattered about to high, dry grasslands punctuated by thickets and bushes and pockmarked by tall, green shade trees.
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