Tijuca National Park in Rio de Janeiro is the largest urban forest in the world; destroyed in the 19th century to create coffee farms, it was re-planted by a baller general named Manoel Archer (who sadly does not even have a Wikipedia page). Today I went with friends to the other side of town to do a lil' bit of hiking there. The going was a bit brutal at times -- it rained (hard) last night, making the ground incredibly slippery and every rock/vine foothold the muddiest. You can imagine my trepidation; remember how I'm the textbook opposite of coordinated/dexterous? Luckily though, among the five of us, we only had one fall -- poor Anna slid about 10 meters in a scene that could have been from a horror film (she was actually clawing at the earth to stop and later slowly rose out of the mud). She was a total trooper, though, and the at-times-utterly-terrifying hike also allowed us to see butterflies, monkeys, and scenic gems like these:
all without a single snake sighting!Speaking of, happy St. Patrick's Day, y'all! I'm going to a pub crawl in Ipanema in the early afternoon to drink beers by the beach with one Irish girl, some Brits, and a Mexican. It all makes so much sense?
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