South Beach, so what? (January 22 - 23 2010)

We just didn’t get this place. Expectations were very high as the plan was for four nights of doing very little, just enjoying the surroundings, a little light shopping and eating all the foods we haven’t been able to get for the last seven weeks.

It wasn’t to be. The Clay Hotel was fine, in fact it has quite a history, gangsters used to stay there and it has featured in many films, but South Beach was just tacky, yes the old buildings were nice, but poorly maintained, yes there were some decent restaurants and expensive hotels, but there were far more shops selling tacky t-shirts, rude staff in restaurants and shops, and a hustler vibe. The main issue we had was the beach – yes it’s big and wide and quite a nice colour BUT you can’t get a drink on it! Short of drinking neat rum out of a brown paper bag covered bottle, we could see no way round it. We had to move on! And we were also expecting a parade of beautiful bodies, the best ones on view were ours…..

 

Now for the nice bits - we had lunch a good lunch at the Front Porch Café on Ocean drive – divine salads and chilled sauvignon blanc – we had promised ourselves this for weeks. Stacked high corned beef on rye sandwiches at Jerry’s Deli – all was fine and lived up to expectations, but we couldn’t imagine spending four nights in this area. It was also interesting that through all our travels in Central America in some poor and quite rough and remote places we didn't see one rat until we arrived here - there it was squashed on the pavement in broad daylight where no one had cleared it away.... We formulated an escape plan.....