Jardim Botanico, Rio de Janiero, Brazil

 


I love visiting Botanical Gardens at any time, but seeing one in South America was a rare treat.  I was quite happy when Lisa and Virginia wanted to visit the gardens as well.  We all jumped in an Uber for the 20-minute ride into 130 acres of land that was gifted to the city of Rio by the King of Portugal to acclimatize spices from the West Indies to Brazil.  He also opened a gunpowder factory at the same time on the land in 1808.  I am not sure how these two go together but there are archeological exhibits on the property of the factory.  Plants and history are two of my favourite things which made the gardens even more interesting.

40% of the land is cultivated with many large greenhouses and a research center.  The rest is the Atlantic Forest that rises up Corcovado Mountian where Christ the Redeemer resides.  We spotted Christ numerous times throughout the gardens.

It was an extremely hot day when we visited the gardens that were not super busy and 60+ people paid half the price which is a common theme in Brazil.  Many tall trees provide intermittent shade which was much appreciated.

Virginia and Lisa strolled down the long path under the majestic Imperial Palms, the tallest I have ever laid eyes on.

The monkey troop that was playing, living and eating in the park by the long gazebo stole the show for us.  Monkey infants were plentiful and it was quite comical to watch when moms were trying unsuccessfully to dislodge infants from their backs.













There were numerous Toucan sightings but I could not get a shot of them.  Other bird species were spotted as well.  There was also another species of tinier monkey with a ringed tail that we spotted and most of the time he had his head inside a tropical fruit so it was tough to get a pic of him.

We saw most of the gardens and ended up at the cafe for a refreshing water with gas.  Wine was hard to find in most of the establishments that we stopped at in Brazil.  Beer is plentiful so our two friends were happy.  It was a nice day in the Gardens and a chance to get my fill of birds and animals.

There was  a long row of these trees with many of the blossoms littering the ground.

The blossoms begin like this and form a large basketball-sized brown fruit with a hard shell.

This was the flower of the tree above and the size of a hibiscus flower and very beautiful.

There was an orchid greenhouse.

Interesting tree trunk.


This looked like man-made rope but they were all vines.

Vines are quite astonishing in the Rainforest and they will make a tree disappear quite quickly.

Giant Lilypads the size of coffee tables.


Back in our hood and Guava for sale in the Cococabana area.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Climbing Mt. Solmar with The Dogs, Los Cabos, Mexico

Image
We heard about this climb from Darren's niece who had done the exact climb last week.  Whenever you do a search on hikes in the Los Cabos area, this Mount Solmar hike does not come up.  I would highly recommend it though because it was a great deal of fun and it was challenging.  I went with 3 friends and to top it all off there was a bunch of dogs walking with us up the mountain.   Enrique runs a Dog Training Center.  He started this hike with dogs to train them most likely. And now people join him for free and climb up Mount Solmar with the dogs. The dogs love it and they are barking and in a bit of a frenzy before you go.  You take an Uber or drive your car to the dog training center and you wait in line at 8:00 a.m. this hike accompanied by dogs is available every morning except Saturday.   Kent, Joelle, Craig and I in the line-up to get into see the dogs and start the climb. Enrique led us into the compound and gave us a talk on the area...
Read more

Ixtapa Island- Ixtapa, Mexico

Image
This is Coral Beach on Ixtapa Island The kids wanted to go to Ixtapa Island because this is where the best snorkeling is located in the Ixtapa and Zihuatanejo areas.  When we first started asking around and getting price quotes for this, we were getting prices anywhere from 90 - 110 American per person for a day trip to Ixtapa Island.  Anyone who knows us know that we hate organized tours because you get herded around like cattle, you don't get to make your own decisions and 90% of the time they are a rip-off for something that you can organize yourself.   Once the kids found out how expensive it was they began to research this trip and they realized that it's quite achievable to do without a tour or a tour guide for a fraction of the cost. We first took a taxi from Hilton Grand where we were staying to Playa Linda, where the Pier is located for the water taxis.  Our taxi from the Hilton Grand cost 300 pesos to get the 4 of us to Playa Linda where a lot of marke...
Read more

Kuilau Ridge Trail - Kauai, Hawaii

Image
My son Dax wanted to do this trail because it was in the interior of the island in the Rain Forest of Kauai. Some unusual Dr. Seuss like plants behind Kim. There is quite a bit of parking available before and after the bridge. There are washrooms available, they are super gross of the non flushing kind and the smell was really bad worse than your average outdoor Biffy. The trail begins at the yellow metal gates and there is a lot of elevation to climb up for the first section.  Eventually you get to the pretty views of a multitude of greens. You can literally take a ton of photos because every view is gorgeous! The forest is thick with some scary steep drop offs but the trail is wide enough for safety  You can continue for a longer trail for another 3.2 miles past the bridge but our hike was already going to be 2 hours round trip so we stopped at the bridge. That was enough beauty for one day. I highly recommend this hike and gave it a 5 out of 5 because it was moderately chal...
Read more