What a sad experience. I read there was a mini-zoo and walked from the hotel to the park. What you see when you get there is a park that could be beautiful but has been abandoned, with beggars and junkies everywhere.
The saddest spectacle of it was seeing poor, end of line hookers everywhere in the park waiting for clients, and that was in the middle of the day, around !
To complete the nightmarish trip, the cages were dirty and there weren't many animals. I guess the zoo pales in comparison to the exuberant exotic night fauna you find in the park Don't go there at all! Interesting but it suffer of bad maintenance from the city hall. There's a strong smell of organic matter delivered from the animals who live in the small zoo inside the park.
Take are on the suspicious visitors who use the place as a trade area for sex, but generally with no problem for who are just visiting touristically. I live four blocks from this park in Curitiba. There are several issues I have with the park. One, the walkways and paved running areas are too narrow and it is frustrating to try to jog in a park with little room to move. Second, there is a contingent of homeless people in the park and it is very obvious in the daytime. The park in some parts has a bad smell as well.
A third thing of this park that I don't like is safety. Back in March, my girlfriend and I noticed a man with a weapon trying to rob an individual on a bicycle. There is a Policia Militar police presence in the park near the entrance but they are on one side of the park. I recommend Parque Barigui on the other city of Curitiba as a better and safer option.
