South of Florida
Trip Start
May 27, 2007
1
14
27
Trip End
Dec 23, 2007
Key West and Miami,
Florida,
United States
Monday, September 3, 2007
Eventually, after 7 hours on the train and 5 hours on the bus, I arrived in Key West to find it raining! Only a small shower timed perfectly to coincide with my arrival...
The rain didn't last long so the following day I hired a bicycle (looked like a relic from the early 80's) and was off to explore Key West. It's actuallty a lot larger than I had imagined but covered a lot of ground with my bike. I ended up spending the afternoon lazing on a beach and reading my book. I discovered that I was in a prime location for watching the sun set (apparently famous in Key West) so just stayed there until after dark!
The following day was spent at Dry Tortugas National Park where I snorkeled for about 2 hours around the fort searching for a shark but without luck. On the way back from the fort (about 1.5hr boat ride) I got talking to the crew and sat up front and was acting navigator (essentially everything is computer controlled so didn't have to do anything other than watch for lobster pots to avoid!). I went out for dinner with some of the crew and then on the Ghost Tour of Key West - apparently a lot of the place is haunted! Another of the crew let me join a dolphin watching tour he was crewing on the following day for free: so happy because it was a really expensive tour and I wanted to see the dolphins in the wild!
I also managed to fit a couple of scuba dives into my time in Key West but much to my disappointment - still no sharks!
My room mate in the hostel also happened to be called Lizzie and was from England as well. She'd been doing her Open Water dive qualification plus some extra dives so had spent quite a lot of time out on the boats. When I introduced myself to the crew on each boat, so many of them said 'We had a Lizzie from England the other day learning to dive'. I became known as Lizzie 2 from England!
I decided that it would work out cheaper for me to hire a car and drive from Key West back to Miami once I took into account bus and taxi fares so I was road-tripping for the third time in 3 weeks! I had planned to stop at Key Largo and go and snorkel in a different part of the keys. I arrived about 15 mins too late to join the tour! In the end it worked out better for me as I then drove straight up towards Miami and happened across a sign for Monkey Jungle - where humans are caged and monkeys run free! I spent my afternoon just wandering around and feeding the monkeys (only with the approved food) and talking to the parrots.
When I was in Barcelona last year for Dave's (uni friend) birthday, we met some girls from Miami. We kept in contact and randomly a few weeks before I arrived in Miami I received an email saying if we were ever in the area to call them and they would take us out! So I called them and I went out with 2 of the girls, Patty and Yanet. They took me to a house party with free alcohol - drinks served so very strong that I had to get more mixer added (weak, I know but I was pretty much handed half a pint of pure vodka!). I had never heard most of the music that was played but managed to dance anyway! Our night ended when we were trying to get into a club at 3am and the fire marshalls turned up as there were too many people in the club already! We decided to just get some food and call it a night.
The following night we went out again planning to arrive at the club at 10.30 to ensure entrance and get a free dinner in the process. Unfortunately, we arrived at 10.35 and were told we were too late for the dinner sitting and to come back later after dinner and would be let straight in. The girls took me to Mango which is a latin club next to the beach. I continued my tradition of alcohol in Latin America and was drinking Pina Coladas. It was actually nicer than some of the drinks I'd had in Guatemala!! We left Mango and headed to Bed (the name of the club - named because it has beds inside instead of chairs!). This was a great club with excellent music, the fact that I actually knew at least half of the songs helped! I had decided previously that I would not have a late night as needed to be up at 6.30 to drive to the airport for my flight to Brazil (very happy to be returning to Latin America... only problem is I don't speak any Portuguese). My night did not go quite to plan and ended up back at the hostel at about 2.30! 4 hours sleep... no problemo... I'd just have to sleep on the plane!
So happy to have met up with the girls and will hopefully be seeing them again when I return to Miami for one night only in November!
Next update soon...
Photos: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=53990&l=6d1ec&id=562300227
