A paraplegic man in Brazil is lifted into the clouds on one of Rio de Janeiro’s hardest trails

Associated Press

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — It’s perhaps Rio de Janeiro’s hardest trail. It features one particularly daunting section requiring a perilous scramble that can cause hikers to freeze up with fright. But 40-year-old paraplegic Ezequiel da Luz traversed jungle and surmounted rocks this week to reach Pedra da Gavea’s peak that towers over the Atlantic Ocean. Da Luz had been waiting since 2021 and traveled more than 1,000 kilometers or about 620 miles by bus from southern Brazil when his chance arrived to ascend with the assistance of an organization called the Inclusion Collective. Da Luz wheeled himself forward on the summit and waved a Brazilian flag in the air. Volunteers and other hikers already atop the mountain erupted in applause.