Welcome to Miami… or, as I like to call it, the Armpit of
the United States.
Here we spent a week of our lives that we will never get
back. We should have known to change our plans the minute we missed the flight
in Las Vegas. Obviously the universe was trying to tell us something, “Don’t go
to this shit-hole”. We should also have taken heed from other people’s
reactions. Every time I mentioned that we were going to Miami, people looked at
me as if I had just asked them to lend me their uterus, followed with a long
whiny “WHYYYY?”.
We thought Miami would be fun. I mean, it’s MIAMI BITCH!
Sounds great right? WRONG!
The town is filthy and disgusting. There’s no arts or
culture at all – just drinking and partying. Lucky for us, we also arrived just
in time for Spring Break. Thank goodness, because we were worried that there
would not be enough drunken teenage idiots in town, but the Spring Breakers
took care of that one.
 |
| Yes, that's a margarita and two beers. Classy! |
We did get off to a very bad start here – first we missed
the flight, THEN we arrived at our hotel at about 23h00 in the evening. The
Princess Ann on Collins Ave. The most disgusting place on earth!
 |
| It's like Hotel California... you can check out but you can never leave... |
Our
room was tiny and dank. There was black mound in the air-conditioning
unit, rising damp throughout the room, mold in the cupboards,
filthy crawling carpets, windows held shut by broken pieces of wood – we
managed to get the window open, only to be met with the lovely view of
the
garbage dumpster out back. To top it all off, we had the lovely aroma of
urine
(not ours) wafting about the room.
We decided to go out and have a drink – hopefully the room
wouldn’t seem as bad under the influence of 10 or so margarita/martinis.
 |
| Not even the uber-huge margarita could ease our pain |
 |
| The restaurant had a pool above the dance floor - this was pretty cool. |
Drinking didn’t work. Naturally we couldn’t stay here for
fear that the bed bugs might steal our luggage. So we asked to be moved to a
different room.
The new room was a little better – the urine scent was not
quite as strong, and the room was much cleaner - even though the refrigerator
looked like someone had smeared pooh all over it, and put out about 60
cigarettes on the door. So we decided to turn in for the night, with the view
of finding new accommodation the next day.
Morning came, and we decided to try and stick it out in Chateau Crappo for a bit.
We went for a little stroll about town. We were staying in
South Beach, which is the Historic Art Deco district. If you can overlook the
filth and vomit on the side of the road, you can really appreciate the
beautiful Art Deco buildings.
 |
| THE Versace mansion where it all went down. Recently sold for $50mil! |
I will say one good thing – at least – the beaches here are
quite beautiful. With long, white sandy beaches and turquoise blue waters, and
thousands of hopeless, plastic, wannabes cluttering and spoiling the area.
We also rented a bicycle for the day, and rode up and down
the esplanade, which was a fun and pretty ride.
 |
| Our rental bikes. FUN! |
After three nights at Chateau Crappo, we decided we couldn’t
take it anymore. So we checked out, and booked ourselves into the Chesterfield Hotel across the road. Ah! This was much better. Extremely clean and ultra
modern rooms, fabulous décor, a bar in the lobby, flat-screen TVs and iPod docks
in every room. FAB!
Except for one minor, itty bitty little detail which no-one
mentioned before we checked in… The lobby and bar area becomes a CLUB at night
– from at 17h00 to 05h00 every day!! The iPod docks in the rooms also meant
that guests could play their own music in their rooms too, as loudly as they
wanted.
Yay us! We moved from Disgusting Hell on Earth, to NOISY
Hell on Earth. Way to go! This holiday just keeps getting better!
 |
| Our room in the Chesterfield |
 |
| Add caption |
Anyway, we could deal with the noise – mainly by drinking our
body weight in cocktails at night to make sure we would be out the minute our
heads hit the pillow at night.
 |
| Mmmm, dirty martinis! |
We decided to take a tour of Miami. This tour consisted of a
coach city tour, a boat tour of the harbor, and a tour to the Everglades. We
booked it through Half Price tickets. If you ever go to Miami, DO NOT BOOK
ANYTHING THROUGH THEM!
We started off with the city tour – in a bus which was about
as comfortable and clean as a prison cell on Alcatraz. The seats were broken,
the windows were filthy, with anti-glare on them which meant you couldn’t see
out of them – not sure how effective this tour company thought this would be –
if they even think about anything at all. From the minute we stepped onto the
bus, it was evident that the city tour was going to be pointless, so I sat back
in my little seat and had a little nap.
I
did wake up for our brief stop in Little Havana. This area has the
highest concentration of Hispanics in Miami - so named after Havana in
Cuba as it is home to many Cuban immigrants.
We went to a local cigar maker to see how they make Cuban
cigars –rolled by hand. We had a little shot of Cuban Coffee, and walked around
the town for a bit, before hopping back on the bus for the next leg.
Next up was our tour of the Miami Harbour and islands. We
got onto the little boat, only to be told that the tour guide was off sick, and
that the taxi driver would be handling the tour. HELLO?? WTF am I paying for??
Anyway. Despite our tour-guide-taxi-driver and his lack of
information, the ride was quite enjoyable as the islands and waters are
beautiful, so it was nice to relax on the ride and take in the sights.
 |
| We saw dolphins in the harbour! |
 |
| Dolphin! |
 |
| Fisher Island - where all the rich people live. You can only get onto the island by boat, and if you have a personal invite from a resident |
 |
| The house from Scarface |
 |
| Elizabeth Taylor's house - the rabbit in front was a gift from Michael Jackson |
 |
| Frank Sinatra's house |
 |
| This house belongs to the dude who invented Viagra. It's the biggest house on the island |
 | |
| Apparently this is Barbra Streisand's house... but I think it's too ugly to be hers... |
 |
| We came across this little tug boat... only something as gay as this could come from Canada.... |
It was now time for our Everglades tour. So we boarded our
bus – The Death-Trap-On-Wheels – for our 60min drive to the Everglades National
Park. Did I mention that the bus had no air-conditioning? Yes! So you can
imagine how much FUN this drive was!!
We arrived at the Everglades, drenched in sweat and feeling
light-headed from heat-stroke, ready for our ride on the air-boat!
This proved to be the most enjoyable part of our Miami
holiday. The air-boats were SO MUCH fun! Driving out at high speeds into the
Everglades to go Alligator spotting was so awesome!
 |
| Little terrapins |
 |
| This is fun!! |
 |
| Ooo! A 'gator! |
 |
| Looking for swamp folk! |
 |
| We had to wear earplugs because the motor was so loud |
 |
| WTF is that? |
By now we only had two days left in Miami – thank god! We
decided to take a bus out to Key West for a day.
This was about a 4
hour bus ride, over all the Keys, right to the tip of Florida – naturally we
booked this through a different tour company.
We were in town for the St Patrick’s Day celebrations! So
there were loads of Green tourists around, making quite a festive experience.
 |
| World's Smallest Bar |
 |
| Hemingway house |
I LOVED Key West. It was so relaxing just walk around this
beautiful historic town. Sit on the lovely white beaches and have a couple of
drinks before heading back to the Spawn of Satan that is Miami.
On our last day, we decided to rent a car and drive to Fort
Lauderdale for the day. Liesl used to live here, so we were going to visit all
her old haunts, as well as meet up with a couple of her friends.
Fort Lauderdal was amazing. So pretty and calm and refined –
compared to Miami.
We arrived in time for lunch, had a bit to eat and then went
to the beach for a couple of hours – mainly to catch up on sleep seen as we
weren’t getting much of that at our Hotel-Club.
In the early evening we headed out to the Marina to meet up
with Liesl’s peeps.
 |
| Mark, Liesl and Melinda |
 |
| Nancy, Liesl and Buddy |
There were loads of beautiful yachts, and cruise ships
docked.
Then we went for drinks at marina café – which was
overlooking THIS:
 |
| This is MASSIVE! |
This is the biggest fucking private yacht I have ever seen.
The pictures don’t do it justice. I really can’t describe the size and splendor
of this thing – it was so big we couldn’t get all of it into a photo!
It’s so big, it has a boat on board the boat! The entire
thing is 6 levels, and each cabin has it’s own private sunning deck – the side
of the boat opens up at each cabin into the ocean. So you can dive out the side
of the boat, have a swim and get straight back into your cabin. Just beautiful.
I want one!
Naturally, Liesl and were speculating as to who this
floating mansion must belong to… Someone really rich!
Yeah, it belongs to Steven Spielberg.
 |
| Steven Spielberg is really rich |
That was our last day in Florida (Miami). We had a 7am
flight the next day to New York. Thank god this part of the holiday was finally
over! (or was it?!)
When we got back to Miami, we packed our bags, and went out
for dinner. We planned to wake up at 4am, so that we could check out ASAP and
just go hang out at the airport until our flight – that’s how desperate we were
to leave!
So in the morning, I woke up, ready to leave, only to notice
that it was 06h00!!!! Our flight was due to leave at 07h00, and we were nowhere near the
airport! The fucking alarm didn’t go off – or if it did, we didn’t hear it!!
So we, once again, missed our flight!!!!!!!! Words cannot
describe how upset and irritated we were by this point. I actually thought I
was going to throw myself out of the window. Not only do we now have to book
new flights, BUT we have to spend MORE time in disgusting Miami!
Anyway, we managed to get onto the next available flight,
which was in the afternoon. So by 14h00, we were, at last, on our way to New
York City – FREEDOM!!
xxx
