Florida Pt 2

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Sorry we haven’t posted for a while, didn’t want to get sand in the laptop and no WiFi at the beach.....

So after Fort Lauderdale we headed the hour south to Miami.

Ah SoBe, ah SoCool, ah SoTired... what, South Beach not the centre of the cool universe any more, hush your gums. Actually it still is a pretty chilled place, the Art Deco Hotels are still fabulous, the clubs are still lively, the beach is still huge but it just needs a bit of TLC, but maybe this is part of its charm.

We found a small, cheap hotel, 1 street back from the seafront and, while basic, it was perfect for what we wanted (thanks Tripadvisor again), dropped our bags and headed off exploring. We took a stroll along the beach, back along the prom (or whatever they call it here), stopped at Johnny Rockets for possibly the best burger Chris has ever tasted and then found an Irish Bar serving Guinness, Margaritas and showing the Champions League, heaven (it even served Cheesecake one of us was pleased to find). After a happy 90min stop we continued exploring and managed to find Miami Ink, a famous tattoo parlour Matt wanted a photo of. Duty completed with only a small temptation to indulge in some body art we finished our tour. Unfortunately torrential rain that night put paid to our plans to sample SoBe by night.

Bright sunshine the following day meant only one thing a day at the beach. The whole of our trip down the east coast of Florida has been marked by a really strong breeze which has meant swimming was impossible and South Beach was no exception, oh well, more frying time. That night we headed out to see what SoBe by night has. Some great bars, great clubs Mangos and Wet Willys, live music and dancing everywhere and one of the weirdest mixes of people we’ve ever seen. Imagine (for those from Weymouth) bringing Banus & Dorothys together and plonking it with the beautiful people in Ibiza and it still doesn’t come close.

Decision time, where next, we fancied the Keys but a huge Carnival meant the hotels were more expensive than New York. So we decided to spend a couple of days exploring the Everglades. We found a hotel in Florida City and, as so often happens, ended up having a great night in a random bar, full of folks there for the car racing or heading off to the keys for the weekend. Turns out the bar had a great cook and an even greater micro brewery. Nice. The live band was good and our waitress (an example of when plastic surgery goes wrong) was attentive and suggested the special steak with lobster - delicious choice.

We took a drive into the Everglades National Park and it’s quite awesome. It is extremely important to the ecology of the whole Southern US and there are plenty of trails though the park but obviously the best way to see it is by boat. We walked the Anhinga, Mahoganny’s Hammock and Pa-hay-okee overlook trails. We saw all manner of wildlife from the Anhinga bird (which flies from its tree, circles the lake then dives and swims underwater for ages finally swimming back to its tree and climbs up because it’s feathers are so wet) to huge turtles just trolling along. Amazing but what struck us most was the vastness and silence of it all. The National Park was created in 1947 to save the glades but its future depends on a healthier, more naturally functioning ecosystem for the entire region. Water demand in Florida has changed dramatically from 1 billion gallons in 1950 to 20 billion gallons now, from the same amount of rainfall.

We headed on back out to the US41, also called the Tamiami trail (no points for guessing why), until we got to an Indian reservation/village, well when the tribe is call the ‘Miccosukee’ we just had to stop. The tribe treated us to a demonstration of the ancient art of Gator wrestling, or how to lose a limb in 10 ways, and also offered a view of the ancient tribal lands, via airboat of course. Being the complete tourists we obviously partook in both but at least we steered clear of the traditional Native American bead art (made in China). The wrestling was actually pretty good and it also gave us the chance to see a 90 year old Gator, and he was HUGE. The airboat ride was fun, not much culture but just a few minutes messing around on the water. When our culture stop finished we decided to take the alternative loop road that our Miami banker advised us was a brilliant drive. It all started off well enough but within a few miles had deteriorated into a ‘C’ road and a few miles after that into a no better than a farm track. Potholes deeper than the car’s clearance meant 10 mph was the top speed for about 15 miles..... having said that, what a road. We have never seen so much wildlife on a road, literally, at one point Lisa had to stop driving to let a gator cross the road. All the way along they were just sunning themselves on the verge, amazing.

Unfortunately, because of the time taken on our detour we couldn’t stop at Naples or Fort Meyers so we just carried on to our home for the next week. Sarasota.

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Photos

SoBe
Art Deco rules ....

Miami Beach
Colourful and cool

Everglades
A view over the wilderness from Mahoganny’s Hammock.

Say it quickly
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Beware a flat tyre
This beast was just lazing on the side of the road.

Investment Bankers?
Nope just a real pack of vultures !!

Feeding Time
This beast was a bit feisty. Tried to sneak up on us while we were waiting for the boat.

Ancient Art
This is no way to treat a lady (bet she gets the last word in though).

Grandaddy
90 yrs old & over a ton. This is about as active as it gets.

Heron
Not just gators line the road.

Miami
SoBe by night

Comments

[Jo Newman]

All that sunshine.....
Am thinking about you lucky things in all that lovely sunshine and me sat here in my office when it's p****** down with rain! Hmmmmm, I know where I'd rather be. Jo