Quinta da Boa Vista

This guide to Quinta da Boa Vista in Rio follows a giant meteorite from the Bahia scrubland, where a cattle herder named Domingos da Motta Botelho found it in 1784, through a governor's failed attempt to cart it away and more than a century lying forgotten in a streambed. You'll hear how Emperor Dom Pedro the Second, an amateur scientist who filled this palace with antiquities, learned of it in Paris in 1886 and ordered a new expedition. The guide follows the oxen hauling the multi-ton mass over specially laid rails toward these gardens.