My Adventures in Rio de Janeiro - Day 5

On Wednesday (May 20th - Also Lezlea's Birthday), we took a jeep tour through the Tijuca forest and on up to Corcovado Mountain where the giant statue of Christ sits. I learned that the statue was a gift to Brasil from France. Julia ditched school and went with us.


This is Julia and I.


These are our tour guides, the man outside the jeep is Leo.


Lezlea, Julia and I sitting in the jeep.


As we were climbing the mountain into the Tijuca forest (Rio's rain forest) it actually got cold and rained some on us. Lezlea got really cold and purchased this plastic rain jacket to help keep her warm and dry. I couldn't resist taking this picture of her. :)


This is me next to this beautiful waterfall. My camera just didn't do it justice.


I love how green and lush it is here. Something we learned about this forest is that many years ago, it was a coffee farm. The original rain forest was cleared and coffee trees planted. It ended up being disasterous for the city of Rio because the coffee trees sucked up all the water that fed into the city. The emporer had the whole area replanted. It took 6 men 13 years to accomplish this task.


Here is that beautiful Jesus on top of Corcovado Mountain. There is a tiny chapel in the base. Here is Lezlea along with several other tourists so you can get an idea of how big this is.


A closer view.

A view from the Christ statue.

This is one of the many beautiful views from the Christ statue. The city just seems to go on and on and on and on and on........

This little creature is a cross between and anteater and a raccoon. It didn't seem to be very afraid of tourists and they came up very close. They were used to getting food.


At the end of the day, we celebrated Lezlea's birthday with a cake. The decorations were an edible Book of Mormon (El Libre de Mormon) and an American Flag. I think this will be one of Lezlea's most memorable birthdays!