Cats chased shadows through the pre-dawn gloom as the men hit the streets of suburban Rio and set off towards their objective under the cover of darkness. “I’ve not slept,” said one early riser, a bushy-bearded office worker called Arthur Araújo, as he emerged from his home to fulfil a “dream” one year in the making.
The group’s convoy navigated deserted mountain roads and country lanes before stopping at a farmstead in the rainforest-cloaked sierra separating the city from the rest of Brazil. They clambered from their cars, jumped a barbed wire fence and hiked into the meadows as white herons soared overhead.
