Rio’s Botanical Gardens

This was to be a day of two halves. In the daytime we’d be a couple of OAPs, claiming our Senior’s discounts to get into the Botanical Gardens. By night, we’d be going back to our youth and nightclubbing in one of The Guardian’s Top 10 Bars in the world!!

At breakfast we met a nice man from São Paulo, who told us he was good friends with Richard Branson. He was in Rio to visit the arts festival here ArtRIO and was keen that we should attend. However, we had other plans for our day on our own…making our way to the Botanical Gardens in an UBER. It all worked really well and I must say Jane is an absolute genius at sorting all of that out as I haven’t got a clue!

Today the weather was due to go off and rain was forecast for later on. However, it started swelteringly hot and the gardens are pretty big. We had a list of the top things to see here but I struggled to get to grips with the map and scale of the place. This meant we went up some random paths just to see what we could find.

First up, the very hot Cactus Garden where the fuchsia pink dragonflies really caught out eye but we’re hard to photo.

Next up was ‘Monkey Alley’ (our name) where suddenly one, then more and more, small Capuchin Monkeys appeared amongst the foliage. They’re very cute and come quite close as they try to cross the pathways. This wasn’t even on the top list of things to see!!

We walked a bit further among the 8000 different species of trees and our next spot was 2 Toucan’s. They were quite hidden but the flash of yellow is unmistakeable! Rachel had told us that she’d only ever seen one here in all her time of visiting so it did seem quite a privilege! They’re smaller than I expected but absolutely beautiful.

One of the best things to see is the Orchidarium which is home to some of the world’s most rare orchids and there are over 1000 orchids cultivated and preserved here. There was a tiny Japanese lady taking care of them and it looked as if this magnificent display was her life’s work. Bless.

By now we were starting to flag in the heat so we were glad that we found the cafe next to ‘Monkey River’ (real name) and cooled off with an iced tea and a sub-standard Natas! We did feel totally revived and went on to find the huge ‘Avenue of Palms’ which is lined with 40ft tall imperial palms and really impressive. We found the large and beautifully reflective lake surrounded by lush vegetation but must admit we were a little disappointed by the famous Giant Amazonian Water Lilies. There weren’t many of them and in my opinion, they weren’t that giant. However, the fish in the lake were absolutely huge so they made up for it!

As we continued our walk around we saw lots of beautiful flowers (on trees) but sadly none of the promised Humming Birds. Maybe it’s not the season as it is actually Winter here. We did however, find a Marmoset Tree. Now these really are cute little things with their fluffy ears and striped tails -like a lemur.

Jane also managed to capture on film several of the beautiful species of bird we found around the garden including a Tyrant Flycatcher and the tiny yellow Saffron Finch. She had a nice chat with a fellow photographer from Rio – although how they managed I don’t know- as he spoke no English and our Portuguese remains limited to ‘Ola’ and ‘Obrigado’.

So after all of this excitement we got another UBER back to the hotel. We were totally exhausted and the day had now clouded over. However, tonight we had our big Rio Night Out booked, so after a bit of a rest we headed out for tea just up the road and in the rain! We crept back to the hotel and remained less than enthusiastic about going out at 8pm…..should we cancel? It was very tempting…..