Vamos a Safari! I've always wanted to go on a safari: I've just always dreamt of going to Africa, so when I found out I was going to go on one I was so excited! And what an amazing day it was!
Cabárceno covers an area of more than 750 hectares and is the largest park of its kind in Europe. This amazing place is located in the Cantabrian Mountains, just 20 kilometres from Santander. Where better a place to go to witness over 118 species at once, living in semi-liberty, with loads of space to roam around in.
I recommend purchasing an e-ticket online to save the queues at the entrance. Ticket prices vary depending on the time of year, for example:
From 1st April to 30th September - Adults = €30
From 1st October to 31st March - Adults = €23
Take a look at the map above: we can see that the road winds all the way through the park. Every now and then there are car parks or parking places where you can stop, get out and see the animals at the enclosures nearby. The park is quite hilly and there is so much to see - it took us all day! So arriving at the park entrance we then begin to La Mina where we meet the sealions and the reptiles, before heading to the gorillas and the tigers. We came early around 10am or so so we got to the gorillas just when they were coming out to play. Afterwards we headed back to the car to go to the next point - to see the bears!
There were hundreds of bears I'm sure - normally if I go to a zoo in England I'd be lucky to see one bear let alone hundreds of them, so it was incredible to see so many. It was approaching mid-day and we had already seen loads of animals, so went drove to the top of the park along a winding hill and got onboard the cable cars. There are 4 cable car routes in the park, and we chose to start from the top: Mirador del Rubi to the Bear Station, it's just a 10 minute ride down the hill. We then changed cars and continued straight down the hill to the Rhinoceros Station, passing over the hippos!
We got off here and walked a little to get a closer look at the zebras! I have to say this was my highlight of my day, I have never ever come this close to zebras before! It got to a point where we were so close that they stopped looking like zebras, I don't know what happened haha! They really a majestic beasts, and I was even lucky enough to feed them as well - an absolutely amazing experience!
Moving on from the zebras we hopped back on the cable car and headed back up to the Bear Station (Line 1 only goes back and fourth whereas Line 2 is kind of a triangular route). Once there we transferred cars and went to the Elephants Station, and we overflew the elephants on the way! One thing about Cabarceno Wildlife Park is that the animals are well kept and have so much land to roam about! It was a quick hop back onboard up the hill all the way back to where we started.
We drove all the way back down the hill and proceeded to the Lion's Den before going to see the giraffes!
(Left) Looking out to the Lion's Den (Centre) At the giraffe's enclosure (Right) Facing onwards to the cable car
There was one more drive before leaving the park: passed the rhinos, the wild deer and some cheeky monkeys. The deer are actually free to cross the road as they please so you need to drive really slowly and carefully here. Next you have to navigate through the monkeys: they can climb the fences, go on the road, jump onto cars and cause all kinds of mischief. When we were there there was this monkey that climbed onto a cliff and started throwing rocks down onto the cars passing through - no joke! We were nervous to go passed so I drove really quickly until we were clear haha! But we made it!
Hear we are safe and sound having escaped the monkeys!
Here is the list of animals that you are likely to encounter on your day:
Antelope
Birds of Prey
Bison
Brown Bears
Camels
Cattle
Deer
Elephants
Giraffes
Gorillas
Hippos
Hyenas
Jaguars
Leopards
Lions
Llamas
Lynx
Monkeys
Ostriches
Rhinos
Sealions
Snakes
Tigers
Wolves
Wallabies
Zebras
I honestly had an amazing time at Cabarceno Wildlife Park and I really would recommend this place to anyone! It took us the entire day to see everything but what a day it was! Always looking forward to the next adventure!
