We started at the Parque Lage, the park that surrounds city's School of Visual Arts (both pictures below.) I had discovered the park and school accidentally one day while walking back from a Carnaval street party, but I hadn't known then about the nearby trail to Corcovado.
After admiring the park, the school building, and watching the adorable monkeys that refused to stay still long enough for me to take their pictures, Gerhard and I embarked on the trail to Corcovado. The trail starts at the edge of the park and winds through the Atlantic Forest. The beginning of the trail is easy, but it soon becomes more interesting. Not only did we contend with steep slopes, but we also had to climb a few rocks and watch out for mud (and snakes) along the way.
Every so often, we caught glimpses of Cristo Redentor, so we could judge how far along the trail we were and how much further we had to go. When we were at the halfway point, we came upon a "road," which turned out to be the tracks for the train that takes tourists up the mountain to Cristo Redentor. (Not everyone is crazy enough to hike it.)
We crossed over the tracks, after stopping to take each other's photos, and continued along the trail.
We soon learned that we should have just followed the tracks. We did arrive at [behind] Cristo Redentor by following the trail, but when we tried to buy tickets to enter the monument grounds, we were told we couldn't buy tickets at the monument. Okay ... where were the tickets sold? Back down the mountain, of course. What?! Grumbling over the money-making scheme of not selling tickets at the monument (and thus forcing visitors to pay for transportation, which is "included" in the price of the ticket), we took a minivan a third of the way down the mountain, passing parts of the hiking trail along the way. We then waited in line for about 20 minutes for tickets. Once we had our tickets, we took one look at the line of 300+ people waiting for minivans that would take them back up the mountain, and decided it would be a better use of our time to follow the train tracks by foot. 
About ten minutes into our hike along the tracks, we came upon a group of Brazilian teenagers. They apparently had hiked the track once before, and so they knew they could get to the monument by following the tracks on foot. It was a steep climb, but certain. We stopped once for a break and eventually arrived at Cristo Redentor 30 minutes later. We were all elated to finally see the famous statue, and this time, we were allowed to enter.
Conseguimos! Success!
Eventually we left Cristo Redentor and began hiking down the mountain. We passed several groups on our way down and were glad we left when we did. We had started our day at 8:00am and by this time, it was 1:30pm. Even though the sky was cloudy and the sun was not as intense as it could have been, it was certainly humid. Technically, we were hiking through the Atlantic Forest, but it felt more like an equatorial rainforest at times.
About 2/3 of the way down, a colorful creature caught my eye. It was a caterpillar, but not one I had ever seen before. This one had a thick, black body with neon yellow rings and bright red at either end. According to this site, the caterpillar would probably later turn into the Frangipani Hawkmoth.
About 2/3 of the way down, a colorful creature caught my eye. It was a caterpillar, but not one I had ever seen before. This one had a thick, black body with neon yellow rings and bright red at either end. According to this site, the caterpillar would probably later turn into the Frangipani Hawkmoth.
The bright colors warned me to stay away--it might be poisonous--but later I learned that it "just" bites.
After the caterpillar, we only had about 20 minutes of trail left. All along the way, we had seen trees like the one below, which have flexible, almost rope-like, branches. I had been using the branches along the way for balance, but by the end, I was ready for a break ... a tree-swing break, that is.
