I used to visit that specific park (Parque Barigüi) fairly often, as I worked nearby. For me the fun part wasn't even interacting with the capybaras, but watching tourists interacting with them. Not recommended - unlike the ones in the OP, these here are wild and might have ticks, but... well, neither tourists nor capybaras give a fuck.
Just make sure that you don't go full "squeee" and chase them, they'll simply get into the water and you'll be sad. A girl whom I used to date did this.
It's actually quite risky. Some people died last month in Brazil because of the disease that's is transmitted by these ticks (Rocky Mountain spotted fever if I got it right from google, febre maculosa in Portuguese).
Haha! That's what my husband kept talking about when we saw them. In Peru they eat Cuy which is guinea pig. I have never tried it, nor do I really want to but my husband is ready and willing to eat any exotic animal...
I never ate capybara meat, what people often mention about it is that it's strong-tasting and grassy. Plus in my city it feels like as much of a sacrilege as hurting the Paraná pines or the azure jays. Like, I think that you'd get an easier time murdering people than those three.
They are actually bristly. Apparently they purr and make sounds similar to a guinea pig according to their handler, but the only noise we heard was the goose complaining that he wasn't getting fed. They loved being fed romaine lettuce and enjoyed chin scratches as well.
Aw, I went to a jungle hotel in Central America that had capybaras on the grounds... never got to see one. They had a sloth sanctuary though and I got to see one of those slow bois.
Sloth facts: Sloths only poop every three weeks. When they poop, a moth that lives on them deposits its eggs into the sloth poop, and that's how the eggs will hatch and the babies will go on to find their own sloth host!
If you're in the interior of BC, Canada, there's a "kangaroo park" where you can pet the capy's. Also Wallabies, Goats, rabbits and some other critters