Santos, Brazil (09/12/10)

The American met his daughter at Santos

For once, we left port on time, 0530 and we’re now enroute to Santos…

Having arrived pretty much on schedule, 1900hrs we were told that again, we couldn’t dock which saw us sat off the coast for the rest of the evening/night, docking 0730hrs on Friday morning. Following breakfast we set ashore for the city of Santos – we also met with Philips’s daughter Autumn who had driven up from San Paulo to meet him. By all accounts Santos is the most important city on the coast of Sao Paulo (SP being approx. 40km away.) It’s also the biggest harbour in the whole of Latin America.

Some guy called Pele, used to play for the local team…

Only having five or so hours saw us staying in the old town, again looking for t’internet which was surprisingly difficult to locate. Lunch beckoned, so following a group of office workers we entered a restaurant that sells its food by weight. There’s a large buffet to choose from and you basically fill your plate up, take to the weigh machine and you pay as you leave. The food was excellent and please we’d only spent about £15 in total, including wine.
The place was only half full so sitting down near a group of office workers and glancing up at the wall, there was a picture of Piccadilly in London, showing the exact building in which my last company is based!

Pele or Maradona, who is the greatest?

Both Pele and Maradona celebrate their birthdays this week – Pele turns 70 on Saturday and Maradona is 50 exactly one week later.

In my mind the greatest has to be Pele, the man is a living legend and a true ambassador of the beautiful game. Maradona is his equal though always controversial – who could forget the ‘hand of god’ where he scored (hand-balled) passed Peter Shilton during the 1986 World Cup Quarter Final in Mexico City…

Diego Maradona's 'Hand of God...'