Tijuca Forest Hike Through Rio's Rainforest
A guided tijuca forest hike leads you into the world's largest urban rainforest, a replanted Atlantic Forest of jackfruit groves, waterfalls, and granite peaks rising above Rio de Janeiro. Trails climb toward Pico da Tijuca and the Cascatinha Taunay, with guides pointing out capuchin monkeys, bromeliads, and toucans along the way. Most tijuca forest hike tickets include park entry, trekking poles, and a naturalist guide fluent in local flora.
The forest above Rio de Janeiro is not wild. It was planted. Between 1861 and 1888, under an imperial decree from Dom Pedro II, Major Manuel Gomes Archer and his successor Gastão d'Escragnolle oversaw the setting of roughly 100,000 seedlings across slopes stripped bare by coffee plantations.
What grew back is now considered one of the largest urban forests in the world, and the whole of it sits inside a single metropolis of six million people.
A tijuca forest hike therefore crosses a landscape of deliberate repair. The 3,953 hectares of Tijuca National Park hold Atlantic Forest species — jequitibá, cedar, palmito — alongside golden lion tamarins, capuchin monkeys, toucans and more than 300 recorded bird species. The park was federalised in 1961 and today forms part of the UNESCO-listed Rio de Janeiro: Carioca Landscapes between the Mountain and the Sea. Trails thread through all three sectors: Floresta, Serra da Carioca and Pedra Bonita–Pedra da Gávea.
The architecture here is largely hydraulic and Romantic. Cascatinha Taunay, the 30-metre waterfall near the Estrada da Cascatinha entrance, was named for the painter Nicolau Taunay, whose studio once stood beside it. Further up, the Mayrink Chapel holds replica panels of Cândido Portinari's 1940s religious murals; the originals now hang in the national fine arts museum. Nineteenth-century viewpoints — Vista Chinesa's pagoda-style gazebo of 1903, the Mesa do Imperador — were built as carriage stops and still frame the Lagoa and the sea beyond.
Most tijuca forest trails climb rather than wander. Pico da Tijuca, at 1,021 metres, is the highest point in the city and is reached by a stone staircase of 120 steps cut into the final rock face. Options range from a short tijuca rainforest hike to Cascatinha and the Bica da Rainha springs, to a full tijuca forest hike tour of the ridgeline. Operators running a tijuca rainforest hike explore waterfalls & caves circuit take in the Paulo e Virgínia grotto and Gruta Luís Fernandes. Entry to the park itself is free, and the gates open at 08:00 daily.
5 hr
