Days 170 – 173
Late on Saturday morning, 02/27/21, we called an Uber to drive us to Miami’s South Beach Area. We had tickets on the Miami Double Decker Bus for 1:30 pm, but found time before the bus left to enjoy some honest to goodness tequenos across the street at SoBe Munchies Latin Café. We had heard about tasty tequenos (melted white cheeses wrapped in a lightly-fried pastry from South America) from our friends Diane and Ray Parrish – from their time living in Venezuela – so I jumped at the chance to sample some. This little café was bustling with South Beach locals and tourists, alike. Steve and I stood in line for our order, stepping out of the way as lines of people pushed their ways through, and then we took our treats to an outside patio table to enjoy. I noticed immediately that the obvious style in South Beach is to wear just as little clothing as possible and proudly walk around for others to see you in all your bareness. We were definitely in the minority on this morning, being pretty much the only older, white people around. Almost everyone was much younger than us and of foreign – mostly Latino and African – descent. The women were buxom and curvaceous, and obviously proud of that fact. They wore variations of teeny-tiny bikini swimsuits beneath see-through mesh or netted gowns and skirts and strode around on tall, wobbly platform shoes. Each of them sported long, colorful fingernails, long, lush sets of eye-lashes, and lots of flashy jewelry. There were also young men on the streets, but they were vastly outnumbered by the women. It is very apparent who rules South Beach! The streets were almost gleaming with bright, Miami sunshine, countless palm trees swayed in the breezes, and the late February temperatures were delightful. Our Uber driver had let us off in the Lincoln Road area, where rows and rows of high-end shops and luxurious restaurants sat perfectly in between smaller cafes, and coffee and cigar shops. Miami Tours was an interesting business establishment that was just busy and disorganized enough to smack of a scam, but we had ordered our tickets online, so knew what the prices should be, regardless of the amount the onsite concierge tried to collect from us. We did happen to witness other patrons who appeared unhappy with the elevated prices they were being quoted at bus-boarding time. Finally, we were able to board our bus and climbed to the top of the double-decker. We lucked-out and found two vacant seats, as everyone wanted to ride up top in that gorgeous weather. Our tour host was an interesting young man who spoke not only English, but also Spanish. Although the English he used was markedly geared toward the predominantly younger tourists that surrounded us. We could understand the majority of what he was saying, so all was good. In addition to being informative, he was charismatic and entertaining as well.
As we cruised through – and learned about – the different sections of Miami we realized right away that Miami Tours has agreements with various merchants in some of the areas, because the bus would park out front of a particular establishment, where all riders were asked to disembark and follow our guide into the businesses to sample their particular wares. One stop was to sample some complimentary, freshly-made Cuban espresso (and also purchase some of the many souvenirs, perhaps), another was to watch Cuban cigars being made (and purchase some cigars, too, if desired), then we stopped at another place that served burgers and also (according to our host) served “the most authentic Mojitos in Little Havana”, which we were also expected to purchase (along with food, of course, in case we were hungry). 😊 Somehow our tour guide managed to keep up with all of his group and get us back onto his bus at the designated leaving times. It was a fun afternoon that we both enjoyed. One of the best things about that tour was the glorious weather in which we enjoyed it. We were definitely visiting Miami at the perfect time of year!
At the end of our tour, our bus dropped us off in the Bayside section of Miami, which was within walking distance of our boat. We were hungry by then, so we found Mambo Cafe inside Bayside’s large, open-air mall, for some Cuban food, and to do some people-watching. All different ages and races seemed to parade past our patio table as we waited for our food. Sometimes the lines of tourists so closely walking by would temporarily slow or even stop, which meant we had people basically looming over our table at certain points. One time, to my dismay, but I’m sure to Steve’s delight, one of those scantily-clad bottoms (I’m talking wearing a thong only) was suspended right next to our table for what seemed like ages before the line started moving again and the bottom strutted on past us. Our hike back to the boat from Bayside was lengthier than I would’ve preferred, but we got back to the boat just in time to enjoy the sunset over Key Biscayne Bay.
The next morning, we awoke to lots of rocking in our slip which unfortunately became our norm at Vice City Marina. We rode with another Uber driver back down to Miami Tours in South Beach, this time to catch an air-boat ride in the Everglades. I had ridden an air-boat many decades earlier, but this was Steve’s first time on an air-boat. Check another item off the bucket list! We climbed aboard another bus for a LONG ride from South Beach out to the far west side of Miami to the Sawgrass Recreation Area to jump on an air-boat. Our bus driver, Papi-Papi (which is Spanish for Daddy-Daddy), was verbose and animated. He self-described his English as “broken”, and he was right about that. In addition, his accent was so thick it was almost impossible to understand what English he was saying correctly, which was a shame since he was full of information. Not long after arriving, we boarded our designated air-boats for our Everglades tour. Our boat ride lasted about an hour, through-out which we were all instructed to keep our eyes on the waters, looking for alligators. Our boat captain tried to prepare us early on that we might not see an alligator, since they are afraid of the loud air-boats and tend to swim rapidly away from them. But luck was in the cards for us, as we spotted an alligator about halfway into our trip. It wasn’t very large, but it was VISIBLE, which was what counted. I was able to get several pictures and a video of it before it disappeared into the thicker marsh grasses. I was surprised that the Sawgrass portion of the Everglades is mainly marshland. I had expected to see more mangrove beds, but there were none in this area. After our ride, we walked around the recreation area looking at exhibits of marshland creatures. We happened across a short presentation being given by one of the recreation area employees about the area’s two, longtime resident alligators, Crystal and Herman. Herman is 13-feet long and weighs over 800 pounds, while Crystal is smaller, but still impressive. The speaker was working to convince his audience that alligators are more afraid of humans than we are of them, even standing within 3 feet of each gator to demonstrate their reactions. As he expected, Crystal moved away from him, but Herman didn’t seem at all bothered by the man’s close proximity, and just stayed still. 😐 I scanned the crowd and saw there were plenty of small children watching that could’ve been scarred for life, had Herman decided to finally just eat that young man for an afternoon snack, right there within 25-feet of the audience! Fortunately (especially for the young speaker), that did not happen and the demonstration ended. Soon, we all boarded our big bus for the long ride back to South Beach. Not far from the tour company office was a highly-touted restaurant called Havana 1957 (I found its name particular significant, since I was born in 1957), so we walked over for a delicious Cuban dinner where we sat outside under twinkling lights and surrounded by swaying palm trees. Heaven! It was dark when we finished dinner and stood out on the street awaiting our Uber driver, Marvin, who eventually arrived and chauffeured us back to our marina. Things were wild and rowdy there in South Beach after dark, and Steve later read online that we probably had no business being in that area after dark like we were, as crime has really increased there over the past few years. Yikes!
When we went to Little Havana on our double-decker tour bus, I decided we definitely needed to return to Little Havana on our own, later in our visit. The morning of Monday, March 1st, we took an Uber to Little Havana and stopped for lunch at El Pub on Calle Ocho. More delicious Cuban food! Steve had an exotic omelet that was made with potatoes, and I had Chicken Frickasee with a spinach Empanada on the side. Scrumptious! After lunch, we walked all the way down Calle Ocho (SW 8th Street, the main drag in Little Havana) to the Cuban Memorial Park, where it stretches along SW 13th Street. Cuban Memorial Park contains a series of monuments to Cuban and Cuban American icons. The memorials include the Eternal Torch in Honor of the 2506th Brigade, for the exiles who died during the Bay of Pigs Invasion; a Jose Marti memorial; and a Madonna statue, supposedly illuminated by a shaft of holy light every afternoon, but sadly we missed the shaft. While we were in the park, a friendly cigar-smoking man highly recommended we try the Cuban ice cream shop on Calle Ocho, so we did. Steve had mango and I had café con leche ice cream. After some more walking, it was back to the bar at El Pub for $5 Monday Mojitos!
On Tuesday, 03/02/21, we hoofed it almost a mile to the Brickell area Walgreen’s and CVS to pick up prescriptions, and then back again. The skies were so blue and the sun so bright, there was no doubt we were in Miami, FL. And that evening we walked to Truluck’s to meet our dinner reservations. There’s a special place in our hearts for Truluck’s, as we’d enjoyed several memorable evenings there during our 2018 visit to that same area for the Miami Boat Show. After a delicious meal, we came back to the boat for one last evening of rocking and bouncing around in our slip.
While the view from Vice City Marina really can’t be beat, there are no extra amenities and the constant rocking and waves slapping against Legacy’s hull got VERY old. This marina is pretty exposed and the endless parade of huge yachts that cruise by rarely observe the no wake signs. We deemed Vice City Marina to be even less comfortable than docking at Aqua Yacht Harbor’s transient wall!
Position: N 25° 45.848, W 80° 11.290
Total marina nights: 151
Total nights at anchor: 21