Rio de Janeiro's Shanty Towns.

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A MAP OF BRAZIL SHOWING THE AREAS IN THE STORY!

Rio de Janeiro

Shanty Towns

Home life for people in the Favelas is very difficult. Most families have no water, electric light or toilets. They live and do their cooking in just one room, although most people who live in Favelas do have a television. To help people in Favelas a low-cost housing project of simple apartment blocks has been started to help families who live in Favelas. The blocks are built with stairs and no lofts to avoid expensive maintenance costs.

Skyscrapers

During the 20th century, Rio's old houses were torn down as large highways were built across the city. Once quiet streets became broad avenues choked with traffic. Towering office buildings soared, only to be torn down to make room for buildings that soared even higher!

This is a picture of Skyscrapers in Rio De Janeiro on the coast!

The Amazon Region

Rainforest

Seen from an aircraft, the rainforest is so dense with vegetation that the ground cannot be seen. The light falling on the rainforest canopy encourages the tops of the trees to grow thick and leafy. Mosses, orchids, climbing plants, vines and bromeliads all steal the light from the levels of forest beneath. The canopy almost forms a separate world where certain birds, monkeys and insects can live away from the rest of the forest.

At the mid-forest level there are other trees whose leafy tops barely reach the height at which the giant trees begin to branch. In the gloom of the forest floor below, tall shrubs fill the spaces between the bare tree trunks that seem to spread out endlessly on every side. Rope-like climbing plants called lianas struggle upwards to the canopy, sometimes thicker than the supporting trees. Some of the trees are supported by odd-shaped trunks and long roots that weave a pattern just beneath the soil's surface, while other trees stand on dozens of stilt-like roots.
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Many of the trees of the rainforest have tall smooth trunks that rise for over 30m without branching.

The leaves and branches of the forest floor decompose quickly under the combined action fungi, bacteria and insects.

People of the Rainforest

The Amazon Rainforest is home to various tribes of forest Indians. Between 3 and 5 million Indians were thought to be living in the Amazon forests at the time European settlers arrived in the 16th century. By the beginning of the 20th century less than a million survived. Many Indians died as a result ...

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