After an unwarranted amount of stress in the morning, I decided to take a little escapade in the evening to see some lights. The city of Torrejón is known as one of the local “Christmas hubs”, but it was “family day” and tickets were free, so there was no way to get a same-day entrance. I was a bit bummed, because that was convenient to reach by public transport. Instead, I resolved to go to Madrid instead – there was a light show on the topic of animals which had a small same-day discount – with it, I could get the skip the queue “upgrade”, the ticket itself, and the processing fees for the price of a nominal ticket. The downside was that I had to drive there. I booked entrance for the 18:40 timeslot, and left about 17:15, anticipating the traffic jams on my way to the park Parque Juan Carlos I. Traffic on the motorway was rather aggressive and all the exits were jammed. Thus, instead of driving to the main entrance to the park, I decided to drop the car off near one of the side entrances, and walk the last couple of kilometres instead of driving them. When I strolled by the parking lot, I saw that it was full and there were emergency vehicles there – I would have had to go to the inner parking lot, which means walking almost as much, and I saved one merging into the highway and one exit. I don’t mind driving, but I’m not a fan of other drivers.

As I walked into the park, I ran into the first sign reading Brilla Madrid Zoo (Madrid Shining Zoo). They had placed signs all along my path – rather convenient. I walked for about 15 minutes and I was at the gate just past the 18:20 timeslot. Since it was a schoolday, and quite cold, it was almost empty and the staff had no problem letting me through. Brilla Madrid Zoo is a project by Brilla Events, who claim that there are over 500 light figures – I did not count – in a path that takes about 1.3 kilometres.

After the entrance arch, you go down to the actual ticket control. I had bought the skip-the-queue ticket which allowed me to see an “extra” exhibit in a tent, called Pollinators (Polinizadores). The whole Brilla Madrid Zoo exhibit has a “take care of the earth” kind of message, but it gets old really quickly as each “animal” repeats the same few words every couple of minutes. The Pollinators area had giant displays of a hummingbird, a bee, a butterfly, a bloom, and a bat for some reason. There was a screen with “Gaia” addressing the crowd, and it would have been creepy if not for the kiddos running and screaming around.

As I went in, I was greeted by giant giraffe necks, then I moved into the Savannah (Sabana), with lions, leopards, zebras, hyenas, antelopes and elephants. Afterwards, there was the Jungle (Jungla) with gorillas, capybaras, jaguars… From there, after a turn, there was Australia, with echidnas, koalas, dingos, kangaroos.

The entrance to the Ocean area (Océanos) could be done through a whale. Along the fountains / ponds of the park stood sharks (great whites and hammerheads), lionfish, turtles, clown fish (a.k.a. Nemo), blue tangs (a.k.a Dori), barracudas, koi carps, corals… There were also two real geese who seemed to be enjoying the exhibit too. It was really hard to take straight pictures as there was very little reference outside the actual animal.

As I got close to the River areas (Ríos), there were otters and frogs. The coastal biomes were represented by the Swamp (Pantanos) and the Mangroves (Manglares). There were crocodiles, anacondas, Venus flytraps… for the first, and a flock of birds for the latter – flamingoes, pelicans, herons…

Then there was a bit of an avenue flanked by Flamingoes (Flamencos) to reach the Butterfly zone (Mariposas) and the Peacocks (Pavos reales). After another turn, there was the area dedicated to Nocturnal Animals (Nocturnos), with lemurs, bats, owls, and a wolf howling at the moon, perched on a dolmen.

After the dolmen, I found the Reptiles (Reptiles), with more frogs, iguanas, chameleons, a cute Komodo dragon… The path lead to what I guess is China by any other name: the Tiger (Tigre) and Pandas (Pandas). The Extinct Animal section (Extintos) was sad – with a dodo, a Tasmanian tiger, a white rhino, a Yangtze dolphin, a species of emu…

But then came the fantastical animals: Griffon (Grifo), Dragon (Dragón), Alicorns (Alicornios) – winged unicorns – and a Phoenix (Fénix).

Once outside the area, you find the Ice figures (Hielo), with seals, Arctic foxes and penguins. There was a tent with a souvenir shop and some food stalls, but I did not go inside. I thought I would just walk back through the park before it became too late – and colder.

I liked Brilla much better than this year’s Naturaleza Encendida, to be honest. It was quite cold though, and a bit windy. I ran into another jam on the way back, this time caused by an accident. I have a theory regarding signals in this country – half of the drivers don’t use them, and out of the ones who do, yet another half think that signalling gives them immediate preference, even when what they are doing is illegal…