Day 1!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ohhhhhh Yeahhhh, baby! Jo and I were sososo excited that the day we'd been waiting for for about half a year had FINALLY arrived! We had planned to go to bed early the night before, but of course that didn't happen; we were up late attending to last minute packing and cleaning and such. We didn't get to everything we had wanted to get done, but close enough. Jo's awesome brother dropped us off at the airport at the butt-crack of dawn. Needless to say, we were both pretty damn excited.
We had a 7:30 flight with an eight hour layover in Miami. Even though it was mighty chilly when we left Denver, is was nice and warm in Miami. After arriving in sunny Florida, we ditched our carry-on luggage and grabbed ourselves a couple of bus passes. There was no way we were going to stay in the airport when there was a beautiful blue ocean only half and hour or so away from the airport.
The bus driver that took us to the beach is worth mentioning right about now. She was a large black woman who was so blatantly disgusted with the stupidity of the tourists coming from the airport that we couldn't help but laugh, because otherwise we would have been crying. The poor Asian girl in front of us was having trouble scanning her bus pass. Far from gently guiding the poor girl through the process, our crazy driver glared at her while barking out commands. "Put the red dot down! Red dot down! No, you're doing it wrong. Red dot DOWN! DOWN!" I don't know about Jo, but I said a little prayer, just in case, as I scanned my buss pass. "Please, God, please let me be doing this right so that large black woman doesn't start yelling at me like she did to that other girl, who is now sobbing in a corner at the back of the bus." Luckily, my man and I made it on without mishap. But it was close.
We got off at a stop that looked promising. Why did it look promising, you might ask? Why, because of the lovely palm trees waving merrily at us from up high, of course!
Oh, and because of this garden of giant pink snails.
Here Jo is, gettin' friendly with one of the big fellas.
We thought it would be nice to bring one of em' along to the beach with us. But as much as I pulled...
...and as much as Jo pushed...
...we couldn't get them to budge. So, on to plan B: we posed with them instead. Then we left our new friends behind and headed off to the beach.
We had picked a good spot to get off the bus and were only blocks away from the ocean. Following the sound of crashing waves and calling seagulls, we arrived to this beautiful sight:
Admittedly, it would have been even more beautiful without the high-rises in the background, but the white sand and crystal blue water sure were nice. We were both happy to be there; much better than waiting in some stuffy airport, methinks.
We wasted no time in kicking off the shoes to get our toes in the sand, and in the water.
We both wanted more time at the beach, but we were also starving and in the mood for some good Cuban food. So after goofing off and taking one last parting shot of the water...
...we headed off to city. We did make one stop along the way to rinse off our sandy toesies.
Here's some palm trees we passed along the way, showing us that everyone needs a little support sometimes.
And some pretty awesome graffiti. This was a great find for me because I love both street art and bees. And words of wisdom thrown into the mix are just like icing on the proverbial cake.
This is a pool shot of the Delano Hotel, which we popped in to visit on our way downtown. A nice lady at the airport had suggested to stop in to see it if we could. So, we did. It actually was pretty awesome, even though hotel-viewing is usually not our thing.
Shortly after this we found a little surf shop, where I found and bought my beloved Reefs. Now that I had the proper footwear, I really was ready to eat. The guy at the surf shop had told us about a little hole in the wall cafe that served good Cuban food, and since we were close, we ditched our original plans to go check out his suggestion.
We found the little Cuban cafe without a problem. I can't for the life of me think of what it was called, but it's one of those places that the name doesn't matter. It was the "little Cuban cafe a couple of blocks up and to the left, next to the music shop," type of place. The surf-shop guy was right. It was, indeed, a little HITW, and they did, indeed, serve Cuban food. As no-frills as it gets, the food was nonetheless delicious, especially since Jo and I were so hungry.
He got the cuban breakfast plate which had egg, beans, and fried cheese. Also, he got an out-of-this world good tamarind juice:
I got another breakfasty dish, which didn't have the beans but did have some mighty tasty fried plantains:
The fried plantains were so good we got a side of them as well:
After making our tummies happy, we decided to head downtown to observe the nightlife.
We meandered up and down the streets, people watching and taking it easy while our food digested. We popped into an art gallery to check out some local Miami art (very cool) and spent some time playing pool/air hockey at a local dive bar (very fun.) I also found some more street art along the way.
It was getting late and we had a plane to catch and some baggage to pick up, so we knew we had to go soon. But, first, we wanted to make one last stop at the beach. It was fully dark by this time and there was no one else that we could see, so it was definitley a different experience from earlier. We grabbed spot on a lifeguard hut and enjoyed the solitude. The moon was bright, the waves were soothing, and there was a slight breeze. It was lovely. City life is fun every once and a while, but Jo and I prefer a more natural scene.
Picking up our carry-on baggage was also noteworthy, mostly because of the crazy soccer-loving Russian who so kindly returned our bags to us.
And then, we were off to fly across the ocean on our way to Bolvia. More to come!
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