STOP 11 | Miami: I am in Miami beach, b***c! (WIP)

Dedicated to the Destroyers, who think destruction is the solution to start over, overlooking the psychological pain linked to it. And to the Builders, who meticulously keep on putting together piece by piece, learning from the past, and working for a shinier and brighter future.

 

When I arrived in Miami, it was not super late, but I was super-tired. I walked around a bit and found an amazing Italian restaurant (a Neapolitan pizzeria) and I gave it a try: it was fabulous. Weather was not super nice (it rained a bit), and probably I thought that me chasing the sun was really finished – I was proved wrong.

 

Once back at the hotel I booked a tour for the following day: it was a 9h combo tour, to explore Miami and beyond.

The following morning I was able to take my transition pic while walking to the tour office, wearing the Belize small bag with a “Miami Beach” street sign behind me.

 







The tour entailed 3 parts:

We started with the first one. Everglades us a natural region of tropical wetlands in the south of Florida (wiki). It is slightly less than 1h far from Miami, so a bus brought us there. On the way, beyond the skyline, we had the opportunity to admire the HardRock guitar-shaped hotel, and I actually discovered HardRock Cafe is now owned by the Indian Seminole Tribe of Florida.

 


 

 


 

Usually you explore Everglades with airboats or at least this is what we did, after taking a sneak pic at some alligators and snakes.





The tour was about 30 mins, we were not super lucky to see gators clearly, I just saw one bubbling. They are cold-blood animals and it was a decently hot day, so they preferred staying at the bottom of the water.

 




Our driver Harry was a really cool guide, he drove us safely to Everglades and back and he even made up a claim for him to let us understand his driving style: “Don’t have fear, Harry is here”.

 

After Everglades, we took our bus ride through Miami and Miami beach. About 5.5M of people live in Miami and 70% of them are Latinos. Our guide – a new one – kept making the joke that you cannot distinguish many Latinos in Florida: “I am a Latino, disguised as a gringo”.

 

VIDEO TOUR

 




He showed us so many things around the city and probably the best part was Little Havana, where we got the chance to buy some cigars and souvenirs.

 

VIDEO TO BE ADDED LATER



 

After the lunch stop, where I got the chance to take a “5 o’clock somewhere” drink, we boarded to our boat.



 

During the tour I met Danielle, a young professional from NYC, who was in Miami for a business trip. How much I miss business trips!

 

During the boat tour we saw so many mansions of famous people. I took a note of some of them, but probably not worth it mentioning here.


 

We cruised around many little islands around Miami, including Hibiscus Island, Palm Island, Star Island. Fisher Island is the most exclusive as you can reach it only by boat, basically.

 



ADD'T VIDEOS and PICS LATER

After a last mojito, Danielle and I went back waiting for the bus and we had a final drink before saying goodbye. It was right now when I got my Miami bracelet and I was ripped-off, basically. It was super expensive. I thought it was Miami-price but I found the same bracelet the day after at half the price.

 




 

On the second day, I literally laid on the beach, without doing much, just reading Laura's book.







And I went to the pizzeria for a late lunch. I really needed to rest, I felt I was running out of batteries.




3 months of traveling around the world in a pandemic have been intense - beautiful, amazing, thrilling, exciting, but intense, and energy draining. One amazing thing I did at night was to talk with my friend Paolo, who was about to move back from LA to SF. The best thing about talking to Paolo is the richness of topics: from California life, to house hunting, to work and job offers, to my sabbatical, to mental illness. It’s never a dull moment with him and I think he is one of the 3 people I know who are more hectic than me: Giulia, Gianlu and him.


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