Plaza Point: Part 1:
Entrance Building:
After parking your car and walking through the zoo's turnstyles at the ticket entrance, visitors must board a seperate enclosed monorail in order to enter the main park. This monorail ride features a short video, promoting the zoo and giving a sneak peak of "The Big 5" along the way. Exiting the monorail station arrives you inside of the main entrance building, which provides guest services and access to the zoo map. Alongside this, there is a large extensive gift shop, with various displays of merchandise and other gifts. In the centre of the Gift Shop lies the zoo's first terrarium, home to the zoo's pair of desert rosy boa (Lichanura trivirgata, 1.1). Their terrarium replicates a portion of the American Southwest, complete with a rocky crevice, allowing them to hide from the visitor's view. an interactive screen near the information sign for this exhibit cleverly showcases the various subspecies of this colourful snake. Moving on through the entrance building, visitors can choose to either continue their journey through the rest of what wild world has to offer, or take a quick stop at the plaza cafe, which is a small cafe that can be accessed from the main entrance building. Considering the zoo opens fairly early, this is one of the first dining areas to open, and is accessible for most of the average day. continuing on through the entrance building leads to one last stop off, allowing purchases and meet up spots for Exclusive Zoo Events, before walking through a second set of turnstyles to fully enter the zoo.
Plaza Point: Chilean Lagoon And Atacama Outpost:
Stepping out into Plaza Point Reveals an expansive open area. Infront of the entrance building is a large compass mural embedded into mosaic floor tiles, representing the zoo's goal of showing visitors a world sized journey into the natural world. Various planters containing native flora dot the area, alongside art sculptures that were donated to the zoo by the nearby urban province. nearby is a temporary stage set up, which is placed there exclusively for seasonal events.
The First Exhibit featured in Plaza Point is Chilean Lagoon and its respective Atacama Outpost, showcasing some smaller species from the Andes Mountain Ranges, Chile and Argentina. A large 2500 sqft open spaced pond provides room for a flock of Chilean Flamingoes (Phoenicopterus chilensis, 10.15), Puna Teals (Spatula puna 4.6) and red shovelers (Spatula platalea, 3.5). Adjacent to this, a grassy open habitat with a shaded area towards the back gives visitors the perfect opportunity to view Patagonian Maras (Dolichotis patagonum, 4.8), a delightful rodent from the arid grasslands of Argentina. Entering the atacama outpost, information is provided on the Atacama Desert, with a circular 500 gallon aquarium drawing guests to a breeding group of Lake Titicaca frogs (Telmatobius culeus, 0.15 - Juveniles and adults unspecified). The tank has a circular glass viewing area inside of it, allowing smaller guests to crawl inside and get closer to the frogs, with an assortment of rocks representing the floor of Lake Titicaca and a UV light at the top to replicate natural sunlight. A model display inside the outpost showcases the straw islands found on the surface of the lake, with information boards next to the display. To the left of this display is a 300 sqft enclosure, representing a chunk of South America's semi desert regions, which houses a male Argentine black and white tegu (Salvator merianae, 0.1). After passing the tegu enclosure, we make our way outside of Atacama outpost, infront of a 1500 sqft steel framed aviary. The ground is covered with a mixture of gravel and sparse vegetation, with rocky outcrops protruding from one side of the aviary. The flight zone provides room for a pair of Andean condor (Vultur gryphus, 1.1). Lastly, a 6,000 sq ft paddock with varied terrain, including grassy slopes and rocky sections brings the exhibit full circle with the domestic Llamas (Lama glama, 2.2) and Alpacas (Vicugna pacos, 4.2) , returning visitors to the open Plaza once again, which concludes part 1 of Plaza Point's Tour.