Sugarloaf

Here is a coast; here is a harbor;
here, after a meager diet of horizon, is some scenery:
impractically shaped and—who knows?—self-pitying mountains,
sad and harsh beneath their frivolous greenery,

from ‘Arrival at Santos’, Elizabeth Bishop

Photos from two trips to Sugarloaf Mountain this year. The best thing about a visit up the Pão de Açúcar—apart from the view obviously—is the little piece of forest that hovers at the top of the mountain nearly 400m above Guanabara Bay: it feels like spending an afternoon on Laputa from Gulliver’s Travels. Only without anyone trying to extract sunlight from cucumbers.

Not exactly a tree for climbing.