Tijuca Forest and the Trail to Pico

The Rainforest Inside the City: Tijuca and the Peak

Tijuca Forest is the world's largest urban rainforest, and it sits inside Rio de Janeiro like a green lung that refuses to be exhaled. Covering 32 square kilometers of mountainous terrain in the heart of the city, it was almost entirely replanted in the 1860s after decades of coffee farming stripped the hills bare. That this forest - towering, dense, alive with birdsong - is essentially 160 years old rather than ancient is a fact so hopeful it should be taught in every environmental science class on the planet.

I entered through the Parque Lage entrance near the Jardim Botanico neighborhood, where the Italianate mansion that houses the School of Visual Arts sits at the base of the mountain, its courtyard pool reflecting Corcovado and the Christ the Redeemer statue above. The trail to Pico da Tijuca - the park's highest point at 1,022 meters - begins behind the mansion and climbs through secondary growth that becomes primary forest within a kilometer.

The climb is approximately six kilometers one way, and it is not gentle. The trail ascends steeply through forest so thick that the sunlight reaches the floor in coins and slivers, each one moving with the wind. Bromeliads clung to every branch, and I counted three species of orchid without looking hard. The air was humid enough to drink, heavy with the scent of decomposing leaves and flowering vines, and the sound was constant - cicadas, frogs, the distant crack of a falling branch, the ascending scale of a screaming piha whose call pierced the canopy like a needle.

At about the four-kilometer mark, the forest opens onto a series of rocky outcrops, and the views begin. First south, toward the Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas and the ocean beyond Ipanema. Then north, toward the Serra do Mar range. The city appears in glimpses between the trees - a flash of highway, a cluster of apartment towers - and the contrast is staggering. You are standing in wilderness, and two million people are going about their Tuesday directly below.

The final ascent to Pico da Tijuca involves metal ladders and handrails bolted into the rock, and the last section is a scramble that requires hands and confidence. But the summit is transcendent. Rio unfolds in every direction - the bay, the beaches, the mountains, the forest you just walked through spreading below you like a green carpet thrown over the city's bones. Sugarloaf stands to the southeast, Cristo Redentor to the south, and the Atlantic stretches east to a horizon that curves visibly at this altitude.

Come early - the park opens at eight, and afternoon rains are common in summer. Bring two liters of water minimum and wear trail shoes with ankle support. The descent is harder on the knees than the climb. And go slowly. This forest was dead once, and people brought it back, and the least you can do is walk through it with the attention it deserves.