Monday, 20 October 2014
I had breakfast at 8 am sharp, and then at about 8.40 am I started walking down to the tour agency for my tour to the Tijuca National Park. It's confirmed. No tour agency would come up to the favela to get me. I am on my own walking up and down the million stairs and the hill. Ok, a thousand stairs. Actually it's about 110 stairs. But there is quite a steep hill before that ok!
There were just 2 people on the tour today, a guy named Sebastian from Argentina and yours truly, and our guide of course. His name is Joao, which is John in English, and is a very common name here apparently. It was nice having a tour in a small group as we got to ask Joao many questions which we otherwise probably couldn't ask. To go to Tijuca National Park, we had to take the tunnel which connects the South Zone of Rio with the North Zone of Rio. On the way, we saw the Rocinha favela, the biggest favela in Rio with its own restaurants, clinics and schools.
According to Joao, the Tijuca Forest is the largest urban jungle in the world, and at the same time, the smallest national park in the world, covering about 39,000 square meters of land. It is a secondary forest. Previously, the land which the forest is now situated in was used primarily for coffee and sugar plantations. In 1861, King Dom Pedro II, who was a man of science apparently, became concerned about erosion and deforestation caused by intensive farming, as declining levels of rainfall had already begun impacting on the supply of drinking water. He then appointed Major Manuel Gomes Archer to be in charge of protecting Rio's water supply. This man, together with 6 African slaves, began replanting trees by hand over the entire area which is today the Tijuca National Park. There is a plaque in the park dedicated to these 6 slaves. Imagine planting by hand an entire forest!
Our first stop was the Taunay Cascade, a natural waterfall where people were not allowed to swim in. Then we saw what was the last property to be expropriated to make way for the national park, this property was once a house but now converted into a restaurant. We also passed by a small chapel known as the Mayrink chapel. Because the forest used to be a coffee and sugar plantation, there used to be a neighbourhood in this area, but when it was decided that the forest was to become a national park, all properties were expropriated and mostly demolished, except for a few, including this chapel.
Then we went for a very short walk through the forest. Among the fauna that live here are monkeys such as micos and capuchins, hummingbirds, buzzards, really small scorpions, coatis, wild cats, snakes and insects. We stopped by a really small lake where there were carps peacefully swimming. Then we went to a Chinese garden overlooking the coast of Rio. The Chinese came to Rio wanting to plant tea. They built a garden and roads leading to it. In the garden was a stone table known as the Emperor's table, apparently this is where the Emperor of China would come to have a picnic and contemplate the sea (and life, I suppose). However, in the end Rio was not a suitable place to grow tea and they left.
We also saw what is called a Chinese Vista, built by Brazilians to honour the Chinese. This vista is peculiar because it has gargoyles in the shape of dragon heads, facing downwards. The gargoyles are spouting rain water out of the vista, but the romantic version is that the Chinese usually built their temples with the dragons looking upwards to heaven, but here they are looking downwards towards the coast line, because Rio was heaven.
The view was pretty amazing though. We could see Copacobana beach in the distance, Botafogo port, 2 mountains known as the 2 Brothers because they are similar in height and beside each other, the Corcovado mountain, the Flat Top mountain and many other mountains.
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