Brazil Trip Report, Day 1: Rio de Janeiro, Jardim Botanico

We had a great time in Brazil and Argentina on a vacation in April 2012. I wanted to start on the South American tab before the year ended... so here goes...

This is a map of lovely Rio...pronounced heeyo in Portuguese,,,

Day 1, April 9, 2012 : 

We took the direct United airlines flight from Houston, reached Rio by 9 am, went thru immigration.

Caught the plush airport onibus 2018 and reached Hotel Atlantis in the famed Copacabana area before noon. With the hype online about the lawlessness in Rio, it was a challenge to look for a decent hotel in a good locality. For US$200, it was a bit overpriced...in a quiet residentail street just one block away from the famed beaches of Ipanema and Copacabana

Had a meal of puris, dry fruits, left the luggage at the reception for checkin after 3 PM. ... off on our Brazilian adventure....

We bought water from the supermercado Zona Sul just opposite our hotel and  started off on our Rio adventure.

Jardim Botanico (Botanical Gardens), Rio:

 We took bus 124 which dropped us right at the entrance of Jardim Botanico, Rio. Just R$6/person-- R$ is reals the currency of Brazil, pronounced hay-ice in Portuguese

Dom João VI, king of Portugal had moved with his royal family to his colony in Brazil in 1800 fearing the onslaught of Napoleon. He set about making Rio nice for his royal stay. , ordered the creation of this botanic garden in 1808.

He got these palm trees planted from one Palma MATER (palm  mother).

The royal family had a monopoly on this palm species and regularly burned the fruit of the tree as they did not want other gardens to have this tree. However, enterprising slaves climbed the tree at night, cut down some of the fruit, and sold it on the black market. Soon the fruit of this single palm tree created more imperial trees all over Rio de Janeiro and other parts of Brazil.

The very first Royal Palm lived over 140 years before being struck by lightning in 1972.

 Today the main avenue into the Botanical Garden ... imperial palms avenue... is lined on each side with many of these towering Royal Palm trees, some reaching over 125 feet in height. Most of them are well over 100 years old.

The Botanical Garden is both a park and a scientific laboratory. It's 54 hectares of natural, artistic and historical beauty

It contains a huge collection of plants from all over the world, not only tropical ones

There are more than 6500 species, some of them on the verge of extinction.

We had a great picnic in this jardim.

We were awestruck at the individuality of each tree. note the roots of this one...these are buttress roots...

These are Giant water lilies: Victoria Amazonica...Stunningly large Vitoria Regia water lilies, of the plant family Nymphaeaceae, with very large green leaves that float on the water's surface.

The flower weighs 25--45 kg. The legend goes:

An indian princess in love with the moon chased after him every night to become his play mate--a star. One night, she saw him in the pond and jumped right in...the next day there was a new beautiful plant with huge fragrant flowers that bloom only in the night greeting the moon.

The moon had made princess a star in the pond!

This is the Japanese Garden with bonsai trees, cherry trees,bamboo groves, ponds with carp and stones representing longevity.

Created in 1935, during the visit of the Japanese Economic Mission, was reopened by Princess Sayako, the daughter of the Emperor of Japan in November 1995.

This is abricó-de-macaco (cannonball) tree with fruits hanging from trunk

The abricó-de-macaco (apricot for monkey ), native of the Amazon has very fragrant flowers and round fruits that hang in clusters directly from the trunk. Its pulp is blue color and is gelatinous.

 Although edible, due to the very strong smell, it is only appreciated by animals.

Replica of an Amazon fisherman's thatched hut.

Here's a fish pond--it's good luck to look at these carp fish.

This is Pau mulato tree--it's iron wood, burns hard and slow and is used in boilers.

Almost extinct now.

The bark is so smooth, even monkeys can't climb this tree. So it is also called monkey slide

Parrot beak heliconia:



Though these leaves resemble Indian banana tree, this does not belong to banana family. the trunk is a slim stem

Amazing to see banana fruits coming up in these trees...

These are buttress (support) roots of andiruba tree--a tall rain forest tree that grows up to 40 m high.

It is in the same family as mahogany, and it has been called Brazilian mahogany...

This is Narcissus statue.

Here's Eco statue:

she tried to catch the attention of Narcissus, repeating whatever he said. Narcissus was obsessed with his own good looks and did not give attention to Eco. She vanished into thin air when her efforts proved in vain and now only her voice is heard in big spaces echoing people's words.

The no of lines/arcs on the tree trunk reflect the tree's age--one for each year... supposed to be more than 200... we did not count though.

ECO AND NARCISSUS again--statue by mestre Valentim, the renowned sculptor, son of a protuguese nobleman and a slave girl.Rio is full of masterpieces by this famous sculptor.

Here are jaca fruits hanging from the tree trunk...

The Moraceae — often called the mulberry family or fig family...

This is the Central fountain. "Fountain of the Muses": the 4 statues represent poetry, music, art and science...

This arch entrance has creepers from India...

Here's Xochipilli: god of art, games, beauty, dance, flowers, and music in Aztec mythology.

His name contains the Nahuatl words xochitl ("flower") and pilli (either "prince" or "child"), and hence means "flower prince.

These are orchids:

they have 3 sepals, 3 petals--one of which is the lip orchids are the most evolved plant species. prized for their beauty, fragrance and aphrodisiac properties.

Here are colorful Bromeliads... ornamental plants.

Music note statue here...

Rain started pelting at 5pm and we called it a day

http://adventuretrav.blogspot.com/2017/01/brazil-trip-report-day-2-christ.html
covers an awesome day with visits to Christ the Redeemer statue, Parque Lage and Sugar Loaf Mountain

Russia Trip Report, Day 8: Novodevichy monastery, Moscow

August 3, Friday, 2012

SAPSAN RIDE BAACK TO MOSCOW:

Collected the ample breakfast from our hotel Roses at 5.30 AM and walked to the Moskva station. As we were entering the station, a security guard stopped us and asked for our passport/visa (he maintained a polite distance and asked in a courteous voice). We were surprised at this request so early in the morning –6am-- there were 3 young men with huge backpacks who had been stopped as well and were standing around. . . Our passport was easily accessible as I had it handy for Sapsan verification (we had carried around only a photocopy on other days)—the guard waved us on at the sight of our documents. 

We caught the 6.45 AM Sapsan without any further incidents. Our seats did not have the huge windows this time(seat nos 27, 28 now versus seats 3, 4 in coach no 4 on the previous journey)—we noticed that the seats that face each other around the table have hardly any leg space and people were sitting cramped, conscious their knee should not knock into the person sitting opposite. 

When we booked online, we could not select seats—probably missed a step. So probably some research is needed to get preferable seats. We had our breakfast and dozed off till we reached Leningradsky in 4 hours flat.

I did not fancy lugging my bag through the central metro line to reach our Moscow hotel Katerina near Paveletskaya. I had not done any research on taking a taxi from the railway station, so we rang up our Moscow hotel from Petersburg the previous evening and accepted their offer of 900 rubles cash for sending us a cab to meet the Sapsan. As we got down from the Sapsan, there were uniformed drivers holding plaque TAXI right at the platform, looking for passengers. Don’t know what rates they may have quoted. We looked for our cab and found him holding our name and got to the hotel after a short drive of 6km. The driver asked for 1000 rubles saying 100 ruble was for parking and we paid up. When we entered the hotel, the girl at the reception was a little miffed that we had paid the driver ourselves and she was running to the entrance to meet the driver who had left by then. We were sure there had been a big markup and hefty commission involved but could not care less as we just wanted to wind up our stay

We checked into our room early by 11.30, repacked bags so that I was ready to leave for New Delhi by the 7.30 PM flight from SVO while son left the next morning for Houston by 10.30 AM flight from DME. Both of us had our return aeroexpress ticket we had bought for 590 rubles.

Novodevichy monastery, Moscow:

We walked to the central line and traveled to Park kul’tury and changed to the red line. Got down at Sportivnaya and walked the familiar 3 blocks and reached Novodevichy Monastyr (New Maidens' Convent).

Located near the Moskva River, this peaceful retreat includes a spectacular 16th-century convent and a cemetery where writers, poets, politicians and public figures are buried. We had been to the cemetery on our previous visit, so visited all the chapels here this time. 

Founded in 1524, the Convent contains the Sobor Smolensk Bogomateri (Cathedral of the Virgin of Smolensk), with its golden onion domes and tiered bell tower dating from 1690. 

The cathedral features 16th-century frescoes, as well as magnificent 17th-century iconostasis. The red and white Church of the Assumption and the neighboring refectory, the soaring bell-tower and the north and south gate churches, are from the later period. All display Moscow Baroque style and the interiors are lovely.

The convent was a place of exile for noblewomen in mourning or disfavor--powerful Regent Sophia, Peter the Great's half-sister, who did much to rebuild the convent in the 1680's was confined here after a revolt in support of her in 1698!

The Convent's original function was as one of the ring of fortresses that guarded the outskirts of the medieval city and it was positioned strategically to protect the main southern access road to the city at the point where it crossed the Moskva. 

Novodevichy managed to weather French army siege also and has remained intact making it one of the best preserved historical complexes in Moscow. (Napoleon’s army had captured Moscow and laid seige on it... however, the French army could not withstand the harsh Russian winter and the constant guerrilla warfare by the locals... they had to retreat...The retreating army was leaving a trail of devastation behind by setting fire as they left a place. They had set bombs at this convent complex and ignited them... but the nuns managed to extinguish the fuses on casks of gunpowder by throwing water and thus saved the convent!!)

We bought the tickets and paid the small fee for the camera also.

 There was a wedding ceremony with soulful music at the main chapel and we felt privileged to stand unobtrusively and witness it for some 10 minutes. 

There was a nice exhibition as well and we were almost the only people walking through the several chapels admiring the frescoes--it was a thoroughly fitting end to our Moscow trip

There had been many misses on this trip as we could not schedule time for the lovely art museums. Our logic was to give priority to Typical Russian architecture as we have been to some great global art museums. No regrets…we had a soul enriching experience at all the places we visited and savored every moment.

On our research before the trip, we had come across some comments which had created a few misgivings. (There had even been a poll which declared Russians the most unfriendly people and quite a few stories about the militia). Our experience was totally positive and we could not have asked for a better holiday. . 

We hope to return some day to this lovely country with its rich culture, great history, AWESOME palaces, museums and best of all, warm people we met from all walks of life!

The next post is the beginning of the report on our vacation in beautiful Brazil:
http://adventuretrav.blogspot.com/2016/12/brazil-trip-report-day-1-rio-de-janeiro.html