Sugar Loaf Mountain

The Sugar Loaf (in Portuguese, Pao de Acucar) is a hill located in Rio, at the entrance to the Bay of Guanabara located on the peninsula that sticks out into the Ocean. It has an altitude of 396 meters (1,299 feet) above sea level. Its name does not refer to Portuguese bread, but the similarity of its shape with the mounds that during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were formed with the sugar for shipment to Europe.

This peak is the only one of several monolithic granite hills that rise directly from the sea in Rio de Janeiro. A cable car glass ceiling (called “bondinho Sugar Loaf” in Portuguese) has capacity for 75 passengers and runs a route of 1400meters from Babylon to Urca every five minutes. The original cable car line was built in 1912.

Tourism

Visitors can climb the Sugar Loaf and the other two peaks in the area, the front of Babylon and the Urca hill. Together they form one of the largest urban areas in the climbing world, with over 270 routes. Some classic routes of the Sugar Loaf Mountain are:

Mountaineering on a beautiful face and well protected. Can be coupled (connected) to other routes, one of 6 general releases at the top.

In 1979 they filmed scenes from the film Moonraker in which a bad guy attacked 007 on the mountain.