May, 1998, Sau Paulo and Rio De Janiero,
Brazil
Pão da Açúcar (Sugarloaf Mountain)...
After touring around town some more the
next stop was Pão da Açúcar (Sugarloaf Mountain),
where the bus tour ticket included a cable car ride to the top. Actually,
it was a pair of rides, as Sugarloaf is two mountains; the first about
400 feet, the second about 1200. Here's a view from the first level, looking
down at the city.
Amazingly enough, there are people who
eschew the cable car in favor of scaling the face of the cliff. I imagine
that when you've climbed it instead if taking the cable car, the view is
even better! You can see them near the center of this photo
A second cable car departed to the
second mountain. As one might imagine, the views were again spectacular.
here are a few:
One thing I certainly didn't expect to
find up there were cats. Apparently, there is a family of cats that
hang out on top of the mountain. It never gets much below 60 degrees here,
and apparently people throw them plenty of scraps from the snack bar; they
looked pretty healthy. Here's a photo of a nice black & white teenager
peacefully asleep on the edge of the cliff.
Upon returning to the hotel, I took
a quick swim around dusk in the hotel pool. Since the pool is outdoors
(on the hotel roof!), I was able to verify that the night sky here is different
from home - the constallations we're familiar with are mostly below the
horizon here. Neat.
