Top of the world: Man takes selfies at top of Brazil’s Christ the Redeemer statue

I’m not the biggest fan of heights, and even looking at a picture of the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, makes me a little queasy.

But one London man not only went to the top of Corcovado mountain to see the statue up close, he got to go inside and climb all the way up to the summit of the 130-foot monument.

And then he took some selfies.

Lee Thompson snapped some amazing pictures of himself on Jesus’ shoulder Thursday and then at the top of the statue’s head, both having the sprawling Brazilian city in the background.

Thompson co-founded the travel site The Flash Pack, which is where he published his pictures and a blog post of the adventure.

A severe lightning storm had damaged the statue in January and I knew that workers were busy with repairs, so decided to take a stab in the dark and along with my colleague, Oliver Harvey, managed to convince the Brazil tourist board to allow us to climb to the top and take some seriously vertigo-inducing photographs.

The two men got to the summit through stairs inside the monument that are usually reserved for maintenance workers, which is why you don’t often see visitors actually standing on gigantic statue. A tweet from Harvey better shows two of the places at the top where one can emerge to see daylight.

Thompson said the climb to the top took about 25 minutes.

“I’ve never been afraid of heights or tight spaces, but experiencing acrophobia, claustrophobia and profound awe at the same time was something truly remarkable,” Thompson said in the blog post.

The travel boss said he’s been to Rio de Janeiro several times before but he’d never had time to visit Christ the Redeemer in person, much less climb to the top of the iconic monument. He added that he’s received several messages from Brazilians saying that it’s something they’ve always wanted to do, but few actually get the chance.