The picture above was not taken in the middle of the Amazonian Jungle nor in a remote corner of the Pantanal, it was shot from a helicopter in the middle of Rio de Janeiro. This is the cities highest point, the Pico da Tijuca, located in the heart of the Tijuca forest.

What you see is part of the biggest urban forest in the world, so big that there are still cases of people getting lost there for days in the over one hundred trails that cover it. It is a national park and a big part of it used to be farms only a century ago, and as the vegetation recovered the hills botanists brought trees from all over the world to join in with the local Tropical Atlantic forest.

The only way up the mountain is by a trek of at least one hour and a half through…