Pão de Açúcar (Sugar Loaf)

(Katherine) We started the morning with a trip to the Leblon mall to get WiFi access since is impossible to get a signal anywhere else in town, including our apartment. We had to calculate our final travel plans for our big activity for the day, Pão de Açúcar, otherwise known as Sugar Loaf. This name actually refers to a series of two huge hills which protrude from the Rio coastline, and each have lookout points which provide tremendous views of Guanabara Bay and the neighborhood of Botafogo.

Although the whole area is referred to as “Sugar Loaf,” there are 2 distinct visitation points which are connected by cable cars. The first is Urca Hill, and it’s cable car takes you up 575 meters to 220 meters above sea level. The second car travels 750 meters to the top of Sugar Loaf, which stands at 396 meters. You are presented with 2 confusing options at the entrance - Até o Pão de Açúcar for $44 real, or Até o Morro de Urca for $22 real. Rio travelers, definitely get the ticket for Até o Pão de Açúcar, otherwise you will not be able to take the second cable car and actually go all the way to the top.

The first overlook was pretty breathtaking, although I noticed that the sun was already very low in the sky at 3:30 and made it extremely difficult to take any photos due to the tremendous shadows. We decided to head quickly to Sugar Loaf itself, where the view was even more magnificent. As we made our way around the platform, we were able to look out all along Rio’s southeastern coastline, including Copacabana beach, and could even see Christo Redentor looking out from his perch high above the city.

After taking in the views, we decided to walk around some of the trails and had an unexpected treat - wild monkeys! They were tiny little things, maybe the size of a squirrel, but they had adorable faces and jumped in small packs from tree to tree. The crowds were all quite taken with them, as we all scrambled to take as many photos as possible as they between the branches of the trees.




As 5:00 drew near, we made our way to the end of the platform - it was almost sunset, which was one of the main reasons to make the trek up Sugar Loaf. We had been told by multiple people that this was the best location for sunset, but after looking around the surrounding terrain, I realized that this was the ONLY place to watch the sunset. The entire city is surrounded by huge hills and mountains, and the sun sets behind all of them. Therefore, it is only when you are at an elevation similar to the one at Sugar Loaf that you can actually watch the sun make a slow descend. We stood in awe of the red glow of the Rio sun, and tried to take photos of the sunset with both our camera and our minds - this truly was a honeymoon moment!

Shortly after sunset, we decided to make our way down the hills and head into Copacabana beach. We had envisioned tons of tiki bars with live bands all along the beach, but this was not the case. It was simply a series of hotels, apartments, and overpriced outdoor cafes. Even when we walked along Copacabana street we only found small stores, food kiosk, and a road filled with exhaust. We stopped to recharge with a pizza at Eclipse Restaurant, then had a banana flavored beer at a fun bar called Banana Jack, and then continued walking through to Ipanema. We changed clothes, grabbed a bite to eat and headed out to find a cab, armed with a list of 3 venues based upon recommendation from our guidebook. Tonight we would find the Rio nightlife!

We headed to an area called Lagoa, which is actually a large lake just behind Ipanema. Our taxi driver took us to the first location, but it ended up just being a random restaurant in a deserted location. The next venue ended up being a kiosk along the lake which was closed, so we decided to just get out at our third stop, a place called Bar Lagoa. Once again, this was not actually a bar but a restaurant with an older clientele and no music. It looked like the establishment had a lot of history and definitely had a plentiful crowd, but it wasn’t the “nightlife” we had in mind. Regardless, we settled in with a couple of caipirinhas and stared across the lake at Christo Redentor gleaming in the moonlight, anticipating our journey to visit him on tomorrow’s adventure.