Brazil is a country of great and striking contrast. Across the crowded cities and sprawling countryside, the mansions creep up on the favelas, or vice versa, often separated only by a road or a containing wall. The jungle engulfs the habitation, and the churning sea of humanity breaks in crashing waves over coastal mountains and hills to leave ghettos that cling to near vertical planes through marvelous feats of ingenuity and the sheer structural integrity of the human spirit.