dare2go

Florida Keys & Miami Beach


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Tuesday, 19 December 2006, Everglades National Park, FL
We ended up spending 4 nights in the Florida Keys, since we enjoyed it so much, despite the biting insects and the rain. It turned out that getting a campsite for an extra night was quite easy because many people left early or cancelled because of the no-see-ums or the weather.
There are over 800 islands in the Florida Keys and only about 30 of them are inhabited by people. The word key comes from the Spanish 'cayo' meaning low, flat island. The keys are connected to each other and the mainland by US 1, which includes 42 bridges, one of them 7 miles long. Originally they were joined by a railroad completed in 1912. In 1935 an especially destructive hurricane washed out a lot of the railway and took more than 800 lives. The American government used the old railroad bed to construct US 1. This has now been replaced by a wider highway, which has 4 lanes in places, but the old bridges still run parallel to it in many places and are beloved by fishermen and birds!
The drive down the keys was mostly as I expected, once we had passed through Key Largo, which appeared to be just another urban area. Key Largo was originally named Cayo Largo from the Spanish meaning long island. At 30 miles, it is the longest island in the keys. There was no sign of the ocean when driving through there, just a lot of billboards and tourist shops. But once you leave all of that behind, it becomes an especially scenic drive. Many of the islands are uninhabited and often quite small. State parks also occupy a significant proportion of the land which keeps it undeveloped, and I think that is a good thing. I had been afraid that the Florida Keys might be a continuation of the development down the east coast of Florida, but there is a lot of the natural environment protected and left to enjoy.
Marathon, which is about halfway between Key Largo and Key West, is the largest city on the keys and has an airport. I found it to be more pleasing in appearance than Key Largo and somehow the urban feel was much more relaxed. Curry Hammock State Park campground is located in the northern end of the city, on Little Crawl Key. The Park itself covers over 1000 acres on 5 islands. The 7 mile bridge is at the southern end of Marathon.
We spent our first day at the campground, because we felt we had been moving too much in recent days and needed a rest day. I caught up with the diary and Juergen did some odd jobs on the camper and we lazed around. Curry Hammock is a great campground, right on the beach, and is also relatively quiet and peaceful because it is about as far from the road as possible. There is plenty of bird-life, and I particularly enjoyed watching the pelicans. They are so fast when diving for fish and so graceful flying, for a bird which looks so awkward on land!
The next day we drove the rest of US 1 to its end. Key West is the last key that can be reached by road and is about 100 miles from Key Largo. It is a very eclectic town and reminded us somewhat of Byron Bay. It seems to retain its local identity, despite being largely tourist oriented. We also found it quite lovely wandering the streets and, whilst looking at the historic homes, also enjoying the gardens that reminded us so much of home. Everything is lush and green. After the perpetual autumn we have been experiencing, it was very rejuvenating. We walked quite a bit of Duval St, which is the main street, as well as a few of the back streets around there. One of my favourite buildings in Duval St was the old movie theatre that is now a Walgreen's. It must be the most unique Walgreen's we have seen - normally they are just brick boxes, usually on the corner at a traffic light. The one in Duval St certainly kept the original building's character.
Key West was the richest city in the US from 1830 for the next 50 years. The riches came from salvaging millions of dollars of cargo from ships that wrecked on the reefs. There is a very impressive sculpture in Mallory Square, next to the visitors centre, that depicts these 'wreckers', as the men working on the salvage were called. Since the 1920's, Key West has been home to some of America's most noted literary minds, including Ernest Hemingway and Tennessee Williams. Harry S Truman visited regularly during his presidency and his house is now open to the public and on the National Historic Register. According to the 'See Key West' guide book, he wrote his wife from there in 1949 saying, "I have a notion to move the Capital to Key West and just stay." He was one of many presidents who visited the keys for extended periods.
After our first day spent at Key West we changed to the Bahia Honda State Park campground, which is about 20 miles further down the keys from Curry Hammock, at the other end of the 7 mile bridge. On our way back from Key West we took a detour off the main highway on Big Pine Key in search of the endangered Key Deer, which only live on this island. They are related to the Virginia White-tailed Deer but only stand about 2 feet tall. We did manage to see two of them, which isn't bad since there are only about 300 of them in what is now the Key Deer National Wildlife Refuge. Conservation efforts have been responsible for raising the population from 50 to the current level.
The campground at Bahia Honda was nowhere near as pleasant as Curry Hammock because the part of the park where we were was right next to one of the bridges and the traffic noise was almost unbearable. The ranger thought she was doing us a favour when she allocated us a waterfront site - it turned out to be closer than any others to the bridge! We moved to an empty site as far from the bridge as it was possible to get and just hoped that nobody turned up late at night with a booking for the site. We were lucky and spent a reasonable night, but were quite happy to return to Curry Hammock on Saturday night after our second day in Key West.
We stopped on the way into downtown at a marina, which moored a large collection of mostly 2 storey houseboats. They seemed to be the permanent home to their occupants. They looked just like little houses, only they were on pontoons! It rained most of Saturday, but eased enough to give us a chance to visit the Historic Seaport district of Key West. We took the Harborwalk which is a boardwalk right along the waterfront. It is filled with shops and businesses offering all sorts of water related activity, but the buildings are mostly original and there are some beautiful boats in the harbour.
We left the keys rather reluctantly on Sunday morning - the warm weather, despite the rain, was very welcome and the laid-back tropical feel of the place was relaxing. But Mexico is calling and we still have some miles to cover. I think we could both imagine coming back to the keys just for a vacation. As we drove north the rain lessened and by the time we reached the mainland it had mostly stopped. We drove back up the US 1 to Miami Beach. It is unfortunate that this congested road is really the only direct route between Miami Beach and the Keys, as well as the Everglades. We ended up driving it 4 times and it caused stress every time! But we wanted to spend some more time in Miami Beach, particularly to see the Historic Art Deco area at night.

Friday, 22 December 2006, Big Cypress National Preserve, FL
We arrived in Miami Beach on Sunday afternoon and checked into a motel in the northern part, some distance from the Ocean Drive Historic Art Deco District. But the motel was built in the style and at the time of art deco architecture. We found it in a coupon book for Florida and were surprised that they actually had a room for the coupon price. We are both a bit sceptical of these coupon offers as they always say 'subject to availability', which is a really easy way to avoid ever having rooms available at that price. But we saved at least $20 on the normal price. The WiFi didn't work in our room and the breakfast provided was inedible, but we had a reasonably quiet room for being in a city and the price was certainly right.
After a short rest we caught a bus to the Art Deco district. We had walked along Ocean Drive in the daytime, when we passed through early last week, but were really interested in seeing it at night with all the lights on. It is extremely difficult to get good photos, but some of the buildings looked great at night. We ate at an average restaurant, which was offering ½ price on their food until 7.00, and we were glad they did because we weren't convinced it was really worth the full price they were asking!
I found Miami Beach one of the prettiest cities that we have visited and am glad we took the time. Juergen found the atmosphere somewhat different than when he visited in 1989.

Comment from Juergen:
Yes, Miami Beach has changed, but I couldn't say if it's for better or worse...
It certainly was quieter back in 89. There were hardly any late night bars along Ocean Drive, and not many eateries. Most of the old Art Deco hotels were occupied by retirees, who sat on the verandas and watched the world go by. You also saw quite a few sun-tanned and dressed-up elderly women, some with the typical pink or purple hair, going down to the local convenience store to do some shopping. The downside of all this sleepiness was empty buildings and empty lots, many of which were scattered with abandoned cars and other trash...
Now the strip along Ocean Drive is buzzing at night with one sidewalk eatery after the other, all competing for the few tourists at this time of the year. In between you find bars and night clubs catering to different people: from live samba music to loud hip-hop dance beats. Many of the Art Deco hotels have had a fresh lick of paint or even been completely renovated to offer apartments for the trendy crowd who have replaced the retirees.
I guess these changes, combined with all the conservation efforts, make the Art Deco district lively enough to be of interest to the businesses which provide the money to keep buildings in a decent state of repair. Without the renewed interest in this architectural gem it would have probably been lost to more high-rise beach front condominiums.