Sugarloaf

Yesterday's adventure was to visit Sugarloaf, or Pão de Açucar, the gigantic pointy rock in Rio's harbor. There's a cable car that carries passengers to a viewing platform on top, offering panoramas over all of Rio. In fact that's where James Bond and his steel-dentured nemesis Jaws battled it out in the movie "Moonraker," which as you may recall Dave and I watched not long ago. They were dangling over Rio from that cable car.

Of course our trip was much milder than Bond's. We stayed inside the cable car. Jaws was nowhere to be seen. And the weather was a little dubious, as you can see in my photo above -- lots of cloud cover and wind.

We still got quite the view, though, showing Copacabana Beach stretching off in a gentle curve to that point in the distance. Out of sight beyond that point is Ipanema Beach -- more about that in a moment. The tiny beach in the immediate foreground is called Praia Vermelha.

Here's the same view showing some of the viewing platform. And of course I have a video, so you can get a sense of the WIND! It wasn't particularly chilly, as you can see from everyone wearing shorts.

I swear I did not film that young man trying to hold down his shirt for any salacious reasons. But hey, a little human scenery doesn't hurt the landscape scenery!

On the opposite side of Sugarloaf we could look out into the bay and across to Niterói, a suburb of Rio. We could also see dozens and dozens of small boats anchored by the yacht club down below.

Rio really is a remarkably beautiful place. Such strange geology, with all these upthrust granite rocks everywhere. (Apparently, as I've just now read on Wikipedia, these types of formations are known as "Bornhardts." Who knew?)

From there we were driven to the Selarón Steps, which I'd never heard of before, but they're a thing to see in Rio. I was amused by this gigantic mural of fashion icon Iris Apfel nearby. I'm not sure who the little girl is, but maybe there's meant to be a contrast here -- the beauty of both youth and age?

The Selarón Steps are the work of Chilean artist Jorge Selarón, who back in 1990 began tiling a section of the municipal steps near his house. Eventually this became a huge project involving donated tiles from more than 50 countries -- Dave and I saw specific tiles referencing Texas, the Michelin man, European Impressionist painters and lots more. It really is quite an astonishing artwork.

From there we went back to the hotel and went to find lunch. We wound up at an unpretentious restaurant overlooking Copacabana Beach called Maxim's, where I had a delicious shrimp-and-rice dish and Dave had a meat stew. We both loved Maxim's.

Dave then went back to the hotel and I decided to take a walk along Rio's famous beaches.

Speaking of mosaics, the sidewalks of Rio are paved with stones in patterns. On Copacabana Beach, the waterfront sidewalk has a wave pattern similar to the one above. On Ipanema, it's a more blocky pattern. I saw all this firsthand by walking the entire length of Copacabana and almost all of Ipanema -- about 7 miles round-trip, according to Google Maps.

Our friend Keith -- who's been to Rio many times -- told us that Copacabana is considered the more traditional, mainstream beach, while Ipanema is more Bohemian and trendy. I could see the difference visiting both. Ipanema seemed smaller-scale and more intimate, while Copacabana seems very wide and perhaps more commercial. Still, both remarkable beaches!

Last night for dinner we were back poolside at the Copacabana Palace hotel, caipirinhas in hand! (Well, beer for Dave.) We love that place!