The last leg

One night left in Miami, one night left in North America, One night left of a year long trip. It's been a long and ever eventful journey.
Our last night was spent in South Beach Miami in a boutique hotel that bore little relation to all the other cheap motels we'd stayed in America. A bit of luxury for our last night.
Although the majority of Miami is dull sprawl, spending a couple of nights in South Beach is great. We're in walking distance of everything, including the bars along the front near the beach. It's a good, and rare, place to be in America where you can sit outside sipping cocktails in the balmy weather of a an evening. The art deco buildings surround the few streets around our hotel and the beach front with their neon glow at night. Starting with a free bar for an hour at our hotel we're merrily set up for an evening of reflection of the previous year and anticipation of going home the next day. Sipping Mojitos in South Beach is a classic way to end it all.
Another truly American experience was had in the morning of our last day, eating a full breakfast at an American diner. These places are fairly few and far between, a lot more so than I'd thought, but many chain diners exist. It was excellent to get into a proper independent diner and have 'the works'. Even more typical was the foreign owners, Cubans this time, as the majority of films would have you believe that America is run by middle class white folk.
We stroll the beach in the blazing sunshine and wonder if Manchester will be this warm, of course not! Still, I don't know what people are talking about when they say everyone around here looks like models, maybe they mean hand models because the majority are damn ugly.


Just before we leave a guy with designer clothes, brand new trainers, gold chains and a bag full of stuff asks us for five dollars, I tell him to sell his shoes.

On the way to the airport we stop off to have a look at the odd looking Bacardi building, I'm not even sure this has any other purpose than just looking square but it's decent either way. I didn't realise this was the base for Bacardi but it makes sense being so close to Cuba and the Caribbean.
So that was it. All that's left is getting our flight and wondering whether British Airways would massively charge us for getting all our luggage on board, including two snowboards and boots. Luckily for us they didn't. In fact it turns out that BA was probably the best airline in the world we'd flown with. They make American Airlines look like the Wright brothers on their first crossing.
Miami is an odd place, I like it and I thinks it's terminally dull at the same time. I couldn't help thinking of the tv series 'Nip Tuck' and wondered if it might have been better if it'd been shot in Clitheroe. But that's America. They paint an amazing picture of what isn't always an amazing place. Us Brits are better at saying how bad everything is and how much worse it's getting when the real truth is that we're living some of the best lives in the world.
I've got butterflies in my stomach with nervous tension about coming home. Back to the real world, working weeks, wages and the end of constant travelling. What lies ahead?

Miami without the vice

How do you sell a car in America? Good question. A couple of well known car sales chains offer to buy used cars but for ridiculously knock down prices. As I find out, local car sales firms aren't interested in buying cars unless you're buying one of theirs. When you don't have an American phone number or permanent address advertising the car can be difficult. Luckily there's a free classified ad website on which we advertised the car and hoped for a response. It was just at this time when a loud knocking noise developed whilst driving. Oh good.
We decide to spend the last few days of the trip around the Miami suburbs and hopefully sell the car. Miami and it's districts is absolutely huge. It's a shame that the only real good bit is so incredibly small at South Beach.


We spend a few days visiting car dealerships whilst stopping in the infamous Miami-Dade area. Infamous because during the rather dodgy Bush election of 2000 the whole country, and some of the world, had it's eyes on this county. Why? Because of the refusal to recount the votes or even finish counting the votes cast in this district.
Pretty much the whole of Miami is complete and utter dirge but there are a couple of bright spots. We spend an evening in Coral Gables which is an area of upmarket restaurants set within and around Spanish Colonial buildings. We actually get the opportunity to sit and eat outside somewhere in this country, which is very few and far between. Luckily our food isn't complete tripe either, unlike what we see on everybody else's plates.
We're having no luck with the car sale and consider that an auction may be our only way to get rid of it. Not that we can find the car auction. We spend a couple of hours trying to follow internet directions to no avail.
Upon returning to our motel we find that a couple of people are interested in our car from our web advert. After a few phone calls and an eventual meeting, we sell the car and collect the cash within a couple of days. With 3 nights left of a year's trip some people would consider this complete lack of planning to be somewhat fortunate. Me too.
With a hire car sorted for the last couple of days we drive towards West Palm Beach for yet another complete fluke, the chance to see one of my favourite bands at the first gig of their new tour. The timing is beyond jammy.

West Palms, South Beaches and Ocean Drives

Through the city of West Palm Beach we drive along straight coastal roads that rarely give glimpses of the coast. When we do we stop off for a stroll along a very busy section of beach which has pretty cool Atlantic waves hitting the shores. We pass plenty of surf shops, but no actual surf, and mammoth houses right on the beach front. Through West Palm Beach, we think, is a Rodeo Drive-like road that is crammed with top designer stores all set in Spanish Colonial pristine white buildings.
We plough on through Fort Lauderdale, the retirement capital of America and quite possibly where 80's sitcom Golden Girls was based, but don't really stop to have a look round. There's clearly plenty of cash about though as mansions dot the roadside. This stretch of Florida then clearly splits in two. A large sandbar has developed off the coast which is joined numerous times by many bridges along the way. On this wide sandbar the ultra rich live, as well as the plush islands in between, unlike the mainland where people live in almost squalid housing and run down neighbourhoods with countless boarded up buildings and lonely Mexican and Cuban immigrants wandering about. The divide is enormous.
When we enter Miami this theme continues until we get into Downtown. This area is still pretty grim but has a few skyscrapers and business people walking around the frazzled homeless people. Miami is huge. The downtown area isn't but as a whole it's massive. Over the bridge onto the rich side of town is where the real Miami in the movies is. You have to go right to the beach to find it and even then it's only a small area. South Beach Miami is the place to be. Ocean Drive is the road to be on and only at one end. A clutch of Art Deco hotels line the streets and are lit up at night to great effect. This classic buildings where nearly demolished but were saved and refurbished to retain some Americanism as the floods of Cuban immigrants came here.
We stroll along the beach and into a chain burger/diner place that is within the building that featured in the film Scarface. If you know the film then you'll remember the chainsaw incident that took place here.
It's only a flying visit here, so after a burger and shake we continue south because we know we'll be back here as our flight home depends on it.
I never realised the Atlantic Ocean could look so blue and around here it almost looks like Thailand, with it's long beaches and stunning water and constant sunshine. We were told that most Americans live in Florida at least once, but not many stay longer than a few years. The humidity is a bit overbearing after a while.
We are heading to the most southerly point in the U.S.A., Key West. The Florida Keys are a collection of islands that leave the tip of Florida and extend in a curve towards Cuba beneath. A 'Key' is an island no bigger than 10,000 square metres, I think, and the Florida Keys number around 1700. The main 20 or so islands are linked by a road and many bridges, which means some islands are hardly bigger than the road itself.
Fishing and boating is very popular here and you can see why as the water is a magical pristine blue. Many islands are dotted around and are only accessible by boat so it would be handy to have one. If you see pictures of the Florida Keys you'd be forgiven for thinking it was some tropical paradise but the reality is that the busy road is never far away. Many of the islands look tired and have crumbling shacks besides beautiful palm trees. There's a continuing theme of tat and awful looking restaurants with bad lobster paintings adorning many places. We do, however, cross a fabulous 7 mile bridge that would make for stunning photographs, if only there was somewhere to pullover. The bridge starts at island level and continues for a while until arcing up and then down again to let large cruise ships through.
We arrive at Key West which has around 35% of all the Key's population and in turn is the biggest island. There's a trashy holiday feel to the place with knackered bars and beer offers abound. The streets beside look good though with countless palm trees giving the place a Caribbean feel. Some guy in a shopping centre wants people to pay him to have a photograph taken with him and his parrot. We walk out and see a group of real sponges arranged in the shape of a man. It's scorchingly hot and after an hour of wandering we've seen enough. Around the corner is officially the most southerly point of the U.S. There's a guy trying to flog paintings and a plaque telling people of the significance of this place. Right next to it is a group of satellite dishes pointed out at sea towards Cuba. As we stand we are nearer to Cuba than we are Miami so they like to keep a watchful eye on their Communist neighbours. It was from here that intelligence was gathered about the Cuban missile crisis of the 60's when they granted Russia permission to keep nuclear missiles on Cuban soil.
We camp that evening on another extortionate state park but the pitch is literally ocean side. Unfortunately it's also roadside on this small Key and the constant traffic noise, especially from the rather slow but loud Harley Davidsons that are everywhere, make it a bit annoying. We eat tea and the rain starts. Soon it's hammering us in the tent and the wind batters the whole thing about in it's sand moorings. The only thing stopping it blow off into the ocean is us inside.
We've gone as south as we can go so we head back north wondering how much left to this trip there is. One national park to go.