Delegates forced to sample love hotels
All was not business as usual at the Love Time Hotel. Yes, the pink neon-fronted establishment still hired rooms by the hour, but you could also buy them by the day.
Yes, the room taken by The Times had wipe-clean surfaces, a Versailles-esque number of mirrors and a room service menu including ‘‘vibradors’’. Unusually, though, its chief attraction was not the range of prophylactics available, but the fact that the room itself was.
The primary reason, however, that you could tell that the Love Time, one of Rio’s many ‘‘love motels’’, was not catering for its ordinary clientele was that in the lobby, holding iPads, was a high-level delegation from Nigeria discussing sustainable development strategies.
It is the third day of the Rio+20 environment conference, and Rio is full. On the Copacabana strip, diplomatic limousines push their way through gridlocked traffic. In the hotel bars, suited men with earpieces fill the tables, a tactful distance from cocktaildrinking officials in national dress.
Arriving at the conference centre itself – a dusty, sweaty, 90-minute drive from Copacabana – security for the 50,000 non-VIP delegates can take half an hour. And for anyone who did not book accommodation early, the remaining options are rather limited, somewhat eclectic, and hugely expensive.
Which is why Rio de Janeiro’s love motels, discreet establishments that normally cater for cheating husbands and young couples evading their Catholic parents, have opened up to UN delegates.
Soon, though, the love motels will revert to their normal trade, because on the seafront south of Rio the climax of the week is approaching. The text delegates are due to sign today is written, agreed and ready for acceptance.
Delegates just hope that no last-minute amendments from Bolivia are going to ruin the world’s biggest diplomatic jamboree.