The statue that gets struck by lightning every year

Here's something the postcards never mention. Standing at the top of Corcovado mountain the way it does, Christ the Redeemer takes three to five lightning strikes a year, on average, most of it harmless. Not always though. In 2014, a storm hit hard enough to knock a finger clean off.

The church keeps a supply of the original soapstone for exactly these repairs, except the quarry it came from ran dry years ago. Every patch since has used stone a shade darker than the rest of the statue. So if you ever get close enough to really look at those hands, you're looking at a record of every storm that's caught it since the quarry closed.

I painted it in watercolour and ink, that pale stone against the sky over Rio. There's a poster and a postcard, both with a letter home if you'd like one.

Shop the poster here: Christ the Redeemer, Rio de Janeiro · Travel Poster