Enough was enough, we weren’t going to spend the last few days of this trip somewhere unpleasant , so we checked out of South Beach, went to the airport, hired a car and drove south!
What fun, a car to ourselves and the open road ahead for two days, Neither of us had been to the Florida Keys and so we made Key West our target destination. The Keys have been described as someone shaking America and all the nuts falling to the bottom. Perhaps better described and a jewelled necklace shimmering in the clear azure sea....
The sun was shining, sky was blue, breakfast in Starbucks en route – we were happy little bunnies. The 170 mile drive was great – once we left the mainland (twice round the airport and up and down South Beach – Gill as navigator was missing the Sat Nav…), it was just little mangrove keys, and bridges linking them, game fishing boats, motels, RV parks and more mangrove. It wasn’t as pretty as Caye Caulker of course but this is America! Seven Mile Bridge was impressive as it made its way from Key to Key.
One real concern we have had on this trip was the possibility of the resurgence of swine flu. No problem, we are in the good U S of A, so we went to a drive through Walgreen’s on the way and bought ourselves, for the princely sum of $18, a vaccination each!!
We found a pretty little pub on No Name Key – the No Name Pub, and sat in the garden and ordered a half pound of prawns each. We should have guessed, they weren’t the fresh succulent just out of the water ones – oh NO!! Brown, deep fried in batter – “Mum’s been to Iceland” sort of prawns!!! What a disappointment – only in America. But the pub had lots of money – the whole place was decorated with thousands and thousands of one dollar bills hanging from every inch of ceiling and wall. Feeling stuffed with fried food overload, we arrived in Key West!!
Now to flashpacking! Hotels are outrageous here – we did look at the Hyatt at $540 a night, but called in first at the Marriott Beachside – I think the guy behind reception felt sorry for me (this is Gill, Ant sent me in with the sob story….) But for a still fairly outrageous price we decided to go for it! Am in heaven the bathroom has hot water!! And a dressie….. And a soft bed with mattress toppers and sheets that are both dry and smell sweet – America really does have some good points! And they even threw in a free amazing breakfast. Part of the deal is also the frequent free shuttle in to town and back – but after what we are used to this was a luxe one! When it was not quite full they said no more, and they bring another one out. We were quite disappointed to share our shuttle with botoxed and banger job American matrons in resort wear, and no one came to the door selling fake pharmaceuticals.....
But we liked Key West – it’s a cutsie sort of place with old houses of clapboard in the Deep South sort of tradition only smaller and all appear to be really well kept unlike the Art Deco buildings in South Beach which appeared to only have had the odd lick of paint to cover up the cracks in the last 30 years.
The rest of the time we sat by the pool – a real treat as the weather stayed quite kind.
