Botanical Garden of Rio de Janeiro
06/13/10
Rio’s public transit bus broke continuously with the sound of a pig mid-orgasm. Its body swayed back and forth, adding the sound of twisting latex, as if we were in a massive Durex condom battling a rival Trojan, maddening louder as the road turned to cobblestone. I was beginning to feel feverish. The sounds were getting to me. They managed to leave the bus and enter deep in my ears: two pigs squealing in full body condoms, wrestling on my brain, while my breaths tied their tails in knots. Oink, oink, baby.
The 571 bus was colourful with yellow polls, blue chairs and a red turnstile next to a sideways sitting cashier. The turnstile was so stiff it forced people to do awkward kamasutra moves to push their hips through, a sight that made the brake pigs squeal. I suddenly felt an urge to roll in mud while snorting.
Not sure where to get off, pun not intended, I walked up to the cashier and showed him a piece of paper with our destination written on it, Jardim Botanico, and mimicked for him to pull the stop string for us. He nodded. “Obrigado,” (Thank you), I said, nodding back, while the pigs in my head kept oinking.
Outside, small squares were turned into markets. The sidewalks, lined with graffiti across walls, were covered in floral designs of black and white tile. Some women walked by in tall high heals, wearing shorts cut high enough that caused their inside pockets hang lower. Tennis-sized courts were used by barefoot soccer players pounding their feet on concrete. Nearby tree trunks appeared to be a bunch of tangled vines interconnected out front of apartment buildings draped by Brazilian flags.
My fever worsened. The sounds increased. The pigs must have been working on triplets.
“Your head is clammy,” Boxie-boo said, then helped me to remove my sweater. Steve, a middle-aged American from Phoenix joined us, also feeling off from the bus. When we arrived at the gardens, we ate some lunch and within minutes I felt better.
Coincidentally, we visited the gardens on their 202nd birthday. Dom Joao (King John), later known as Dom Joao VI, founded the Botanical Garden on June 13, 1808 when he was Prince Regent. This former King of the United Kingdom of Portugal and Brazil, used the area for a gunpowder factory to defend his crown, all the while collecting flora from Brazil and throughout the world.
The park was a gorgeous tour of history and plants, centered around the Fountain of the Muses, which represented poetry, science and art. The gardens featured a palm collection, Japanese garden, numerous cactus species, giant amazonian plants, as well as many ponds and historical statues. For the Ribatron-don, the excitement resided in my nostrils.
After smelling a clove leaf (Christmas ham ingredient), I spent a couple minutes holding a cinnamon leaf below my nostrils. I honestly did not know that cinnamon came from a tree, I thought it came from leprechauns.
“You look like a crack addict,” Boxie-boo said.
“The sense of smell is underrated,” I responded. We were in a free golf cart tour passing Mexican tequila plants, before entering a house of orchids. The air was fresh, either the smell of grass or of flowers. A stunning park. It resided at the foot of Corcovado Mountain, bringing with it a cooling mountain breeze.
For Boxie-boo, the highlight was the greenhouse filled with carnivore plants, especially the Sarraceniaceae (below).
The plant did not look like much, resembling a small brown duffel bag the size of a child’s hand. It was leafed, shaped like an amphora, which contains a volatile substance that exhales an odour capable of attracting prey. When insects land or climb on the border of its open tube, then slides down to the interior, it becomes able to escape by virtue of the inverted hairs and the smooth walls.
The most famous attraction forced Boxie-boo to have no choice but to jump in the air for a photograph. Known as the “Avenue of Palms”, the entrance was lined with over 130 soaring palm trees, perfectly set apart, spanning what seemed near 800 yards. It was originally reserved for the royal family only, all the trees grown from the seeds of a single tree known as the Palma Mater. If foklore was true, all the seeds of this majestic tree were burned to insure nobody else could grow one. The nature followed suit, later destroying the mother tree with lightning.
For the Ribatron-don, nothing beat the massive, Amazonian waterlillies, some as large as monster truck tires. They looked large and strong enough to surf with, capping off an absolutely stunning collection of rare and beautiful plants, silencing even the most horny pigs trapped inside my brain.
That’s all for now.
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