IPANEMA BEACH IN BRAZIL (WELL, IT COULD BE)

Days before we got to Ipanema I was singing the 60's song about the girl from Ipanema. She wasn't there when we were. But that's about all that was missing.

When we first got to the beach, there was a guy from our hotel, the Cesar Plaza right across the street from the beach, who offered us free lounge chairs, with optional umbrella. Preferring to walk on the beach and get a feel of the place we turned him down initially. But Ipanema is a tough beach to walk on with severe slope and thick sand, so we returned shortly to take him up on his offer.

And that's when the fun began. There were maybe fifteen sets of lounge chairs and blue umbrellas denoting the name of the hotel. Thus, easy prey for beach vendors. For an uninterrupted two hours we were offered drinks, shirts, maize, shrimp, sunglasses, jewelry, ice cream, guava, (which is great right out of the melon), religous icons, etc., etc.

One of the coolest was the pineapple man who carried a huge basket on his head filled with pineapples. He would take a small machete type knife, cut his pineapple into fourths, throw the remainders into his head basket and serve the pineapple to his customers. He was so smooth and fruit really tastes like fruit in Latin America.

Another guy with a four piece band, three of the pieces being drums, approached me and would not go away until I did a little dance for him. But only after my wife said,"Everybody's looking at you." Then I had to give him some money, of course. But it was fun, and I gladly did it to get them away from us.

There was some other activity, too. Despite the presence of nearby police it continued, but not in a threatening manner at all. Some things are better left ignored.

But as Sally used to say in the Register-News, "a good time was had by all." At night, the beach was well lit, though we were told not to venture there after hours. Even at 4:30 am, when I looked outside, there were still lots of people sitting around some of the stands just off the beach. I wonder if the girl from there, now older than I, ever showed up?