Copacabana

So here we are in South America for the first time and a whole new continent to explore. What better place to begin than our hotel overlooking the Copacabana beach - probably, as Su put it, the most famous beach in the world.

View from our hotel

The word Copacabana conjures up many images such as beach volleyball, very small bikinis, Ronnie Biggs and of course the locals practising their reknowned football skills. However, for me, it mainly means I can't get that damned Copacabana song by Barry Manilow out of my head! You know the one - "Her name was Lola, she was a show-girl etc..."

Anyway Copacabana (her name was Lola...) is probably not the nicest beach in the world and we have been a little unlucky with the weather.  It is often sunny on the beach but the famous views from Sugarloaf mountain and Christ the Redeemer statue have been almost non-existent due to low cloud.  That rather limited the value of the city tour.  The natural beauty of the place is beyond dispute but the buildings aren't much to write home about, so we won't.

One of the clearer moments at Christ the Redeemer

However in the three days here the place has really grown on us and it is clearly a nice place to live as long as you can cope with the potential for crime and live with the inequality.  Perhaps in those respects it is just more extreme than London.  The big plus points are the outdoor lifestyle and the huge potential of a vast and growing country that you can feel in the buzz of the nightlife especially.

We had a marvellous meal last night in a brazilian-japanese-french fusion restaurant (their description!) where our host really made us feel welcome and the food was superb. For once we were pleased to find someone who spoke English.  I suppose we have got used to speaking English or Spanish wherever we are and didn't expect Portuguese to be so alien.  It sounds like Russian to us and our attempts to respond in Spanglish have failed completely.  I don't know what can have happened.  Did the Portuguese meet some Russians in the 13th century and think they sounded cool and if they copied them everyone would stop mistaking them for Spaniards?

Anyway shortly we are off to Argentina so we should have more chance although from what we have heard of the other South American guests at our hotel that might be misplaced optimism.  At least I can understand Barry Manilow!  Her name was Lola, she was a show-girl.....