Today we woke up at 8 am and took an Uber to the base of Sugarloaf mountain where we began our hike to the top of Morro Da Urca. The hike through the woods was very steep with a lot of steps built into the ground with small logs. The hike was fairly short and luckily it wasn’t too hot out. It was difficult, but definitely worth the trip up, and Sue encouraged us to keep going by saying she would buy us popsicles at the top. We ended up hiking an elevation change of 220 meters (660 feet). After we hiked the first part, we took a cable car tram to the top of Sugarloaf (Pao de Acucar) which is at 396 meters. The views were amazing and you could see many places we visited earlier in the week including the harbors, Flamengo Park, Copacabana beach, a museum, and Christ the Redeemer. We spent a while taking in the views and walking around while we were up there. After we hiked back down, a few of us went swimming quickly in our clothes and then we walked about 10 minutes to the nearby yacht club. We had a fantastic lunch right on the marina and after that we went back to the hotel and had class from 4-6 where we sketched and learned about sustainable landscapes.

It was very cool to be able to go to the top of Sugarloaf as it is something that we have seen every day and a big landmark in the city. It was interesting to have a different perspective from the top looking down, instead of just looking up at it from the ground. We were also happy to get there before a lot of the crowds.

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