Day 25 - Miami

Miami - 40°c

After a good night’s rest, which helped a lot, I woke up this morning not feeling too bad, but still with a cough, sore throat and a blocked nose. I dosed myself up on the medication I bought in the hotel gift shop last night before I went to bed, and headed down to breakfast. It was probably the best breakfast of the trip so far, with a buffet of eggs, bacon, sausages, breads, pastries, cheeses, hams, cereals and fruit. I had a good plateful, determined to keep my energy levels up and try to make it through the day.

One third of the group got on the bus at the hotel and headed down to South Beach Miami, whilst the other two thirds of the group were either still fast asleep, or suffering from their night out, unable to leave their rooms.
On the way we looked out of the bus windows to see the large, sprawling, opulent mansions, supposedly of the rich and famous, with massive boats and yachts docked on the seafronts right outside their front doors. Kristina gave us a bit of information about who might live over there, and how much the properties were worth.

After the 20-minute or so bus ride to Miami’s South Beach, I headed down to the beach with the two Michelle’s, Marnee, Lauren and Steve. Although it was only 10am, James, Nathan and Tim called in at a bar that was showing a football match from back home in the UK (10am in Miami being 3pm in the UK and kick-off time) and stayed there until it was over. I sat on the beach a while, before I decided to go off and have a wander around Downtown Miami. Everybody else seemed quite content to stay on the beach, but since we had around 6 hours before Jerry (our bus driver) was coming to pick us up, I thought I’d make the most of the day in Miami and see as much of it as I could. So after walking a couple of blocks, (following the street maps of Miami I’d printed out before I left the UK) I caught the bus that took me 20-minutes away across the water into Downtown Miami. Admittedly before getting here I didn’t know much about Miami, and I certainly didn’t know that it was divided into two separate landmasses. - One being Miami, the other being South Beach, with large areas of water between the two, but both being worthy of exploring, offering very different things.

Once in Downtown Miami, I headed to the Bayside Marketplace, which as the name suggests, was a large open-air shopping area right a marina full of boats and water heading right out into the sea. Although the shops were good, the main reason for my solo adventure trip all the way over to Downtown Miami, was to visit the Miami branch of the Hard Rock Café. Since I’ve so far managed to visit each Hard Rock Café in each city we’ve visited (the cities that have had one anyway, and aside from the one’s I’ve been to before) and buy a souvenir, I was determined not to let the Miami one slip by!

After a couple of hours wandering around Downtown Miami, I caught the bus back over to South Beach again and had a look around to see what South Beach had to offer. So many bars, clubs and restaurants were jammed into a fairly densely crowded area along the beach front, and with flashy cars and loud music blasting out of them passing by bumper to bumper, it was exactly as extravagant and over the top as it appears in so many TV shows and movies.

I did some browsing in some of the higher end shops on Collins Avenue and picked up a really nice blue shirt in the sale that was on in Armani Exchange. After looking around a few more shops, I sent Nathan a message to find out where him, Tim and James were, and arranged to meet them on the beach where we stayed for a couple of hours, soaking up the sun before it got unbearably hot and we needed to find some shade and shelter from the heat and humidity in a nearby fast food restaurant, before we caught the bus back to the hotel at 4:30pm.

There wasn’t much time by the time we got through the heavy Miami traffic and back to the hotel between arriving and our Contiki-included dinner down in the hotel restaurant. Thankfully I managed to turn myself around and into a decent outfit for the night out in Miami before Joey knocked on my door. I’d made the decision on the bus ride back to the hotel to try to smash through my continuing cold and lack of energy and try to make it out for the Miami party cruise, especially since I’d signed up and paid for it a week or so ago. Although after the party cruise a trip to a bar had been planned, I figured that if after the party cruise I didn’t feel up to it, I could always head back to the hotel after that.

Joey and I headed down to dinner together and bumped into several of the group who had come back earlier on in the day of their own accord in a taxi after they were caught up in a heavy thunderstorm and the beach was cleared. It was so bizarre because apparently there had been a big thunderstorm over in South Beach whilst I was in Downtown Miami, where there wasn’t a single drop of rain despite not being that far away!
After dinner we all got onboard the bus, dressed to the nines, and Kristina cheered and gave me a hug for being brave and venturing out! Our 50-strong group headed to the marina in Downtown Miami and boarded our ‘party boat’ and I have to say that it was absolutely fantastic! Within minutes of boarding as the sun was setting in the background, music blasted out of the large speakers on board and disco lights flashed from the corners of the boat and we headed out of the harbour and onto the sea!

I was so pleased I’d managed to get out and not be captive to my symptoms as it was such a fantastic night. We’d all paid $55 for the 2 hour cruise, and with the sunset and scenery in the background, the music, lights, atmosphere and free drinks on board, it was well worth it and probably one of the best excursions of the trip.
We all danced with one another at many a point throughout the night, and with the number of photos being taken, you could be forgiven for thinking the camera flashes were strobe lights!

After the cruise was over and all of us being more than just slightly tipsy, we headed into minibuses and onto the Segafredo Lounge bar. It wasn’t particularly exciting or loud there, being more of a chill-out bar, which suited me just fine. I only had one drink there since it was quite expensive, but it was nice just to sit out in the outside seating area of the bar, chatting to everyone and generally having lots of laughs.

Unfortunately Lauren didn’t cope too well with the effects of the free drinks onboard the party cruise, and soon after arriving at the lounge bar, decided to curl up in the grass nearby and have a sleep. Which although somewhat serious, was very funny too. Thankfully Marnee sat with her to make sure she was alright, and in between chatting with lots of the group in the bar area, I kept going back and forth to make sure that the two of them were OK and periodically sat with them for a while.

After a couple of hours at the bar and the word going around that several of the group were heading onto another place, around 1am I caught a taxi back to the hotel with Steve and both the Aussie and British Michelle’s, all of us quite exhausted from what had been a very busy and eventful day (and night!).

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Part of trip: Trip of a lifetime!

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