Rio's Botanical Gardens

I guess the view from above as seen in this spectacular cool morning in October is one of the best of Rio - (credit - O Globo). You can hardly see Rio below and how urban sprawl has defaced its mountain sides with favelas and gray condos rising on the coastline. However, just below the Christ the Redeemer monument is another of Rio's more natural marvels, the Botanical Garden..

Botanical friends in the Botanical Garden

I'm always fascinated with the Imperial Palm trees...

I find bromeliads very friendly - maybe the cat equivalent of the Plant Kingdom

Love the water plants

And their oriental gardens

 

The lotus was not in flower today

Reminds you of a tick ?

And nymphs to ensure the water supply of the gardens!

The very bizarre, very delicious, very smelly, and very  messy  'jackfruit'

On a more serious note, part of the bromeliad collection

Bromeliads, ferns, water and sunlight - the perfect combination

Bird of paradise

The End

I had a farm in Africa...

No, actually it was in Brazil... (-22.520974 -43.786731 copy & paste these coordinates on google maps and you'll get there...) 

But it could have been across 'the pond' ... 

Those were 'the days' ! So much happened...The property had once produced coffee. Its orchard had exotic trees like Portuguese chestnuts, North American pecans, camphor from India, jambo and jackfruit trees. The windows had tinted glass decorative pieces in the corners, which came from Portugal. Behind the manor, Australian eucalyptus (including the fragrant citriodora good for the sauna and to concoct cheap home made mosquito repellent), by the slave quarters, pink kapok trees, especially beautiful in the fall. We embarked on a few projects. Fish farming, cattle ranching, organic vegetable gardening, Passion fruit. We discovered capivaras locally, and raised two orphan capivaras. A big surprise for us urbanites was the subcutaneous parasitic fly - Dermatobia hominis - We extracted 11 from the head of one child. The 'geographical worm' Ancylostoma braziliense normally confined to the intestines of dogs was found on some of the children's feet and ankles. 

Our farm house, inaugurated in 1858 !

 

 Our 'family dog'  Horus the great dane was huge, and had proportional interest in assisting us locate fish lost in the mud of our ponds...

We had not only exotic fish, but native small crayfish

Modesto was our associate, friend and fisheries engineer - we produced tilapia

We built ponds and got good at it... We had our own D4 Caterpillar bulldozer piloted by Benedito