We woke up a bit earlier than other days because we needed
to get cleaned up and ready for a city tour. A small tour van came to pick us
up at 8:30am and we were taken to the main office of the tour company. There we
had a few minutes then were picked up by a double decker open topped bus for
the first part of the tours we were taking which was a city tour.
On the city tour they explained a little about the city.
That the name Miami was from an Indian word meaning sweet water. The guide was
funny and told a lot of jokes. The tour
showed us South Beach for the Art Deco architecture. The day included a lot of celebrity chasing
by mentioning the houses that belonged to so and so and where certain TV show
and movie scenes were shot as much as anything else. After South Beach it was
on to the Coral Gables where we saw houses adorned with coral or even made with
coral because the area was filled with it from prehistoric times as the
location was once completely under water a few million years ago. It was neat
to see it all. After the Coral Gables it
was on to Little Havana which had the primary aim of getting us into a Cuban
cigar shop. Don’t smoke so didn’t buy any cigars (blech) but did get to taste and
chose to buy some Cuban coffee. After
the cigar shop a bit more about Little Havana which was the primary stopping
point for Cuban immigrants but is now the major location for a lot of Central
and South Americans who come to the US because they don’t have to learn English
to be there.
The city tour brought us to Biscayne Bay where we were told
to get lunch at the Tradewinds restaurant which we did. They said the
restaurant could get us food in time and reasonably priced. I had a Cuban
sandwich which was nice and Daniela had a salad with shrimp on it. I had a
couple Sam Adams and Daniela had a couple of lemonade type drinks. Nothing was
spectacular or terrible in the restaurant but it was pricey due to the lemonade
drinks which were $10 each which is kind of scary considering they were non-alcoholic.
From there the tour put us on a cruise ship that sailed
around Biscayne Bay. The tour was about
an hour or so. There was a guide who first explained a little bit about the
history of the islands in the bay which are almost all man made except for
one. That was the early part of the
tour. The remainder and main focus of the ride was to show off mansions from
rich people which was probably about 40 minutes of the ride. I am not a
celebrity chaser so much. Also many were formerly owned by and not right
now. So while I guess it could be neat
it was mainly lost on me.
After the boat tour we had to wait probably another 15
minutes at the port when we were picked up by a different bus who drove us out
to the Everglades National Park at a place called Coopertown. At Coopertown we
took an air boat ride into the Everglades where we did indeed see several
alligators during the tour. The guide was very funny and we had a good time. It
was neat the way the boat turns like a drift. I think we saw about 6 alligators
out in the wild. When we got back we
were given the chance to hold a gator that was about 3 feet long or so. Then we
got to do a small wildlife show which included a baby alligator and boa snake
mainly. In all it was a good part of the tour and what I enjoyed the most. The alligators’ skin is much softer than you
think it would be. They drove us back to
the tour office and were then given a ride back to the hotel so it was fairly
late by the time we got back.
We got cleaned up and headed across the street to Pacha
Mamma again. This time Daniela had anticuchos and I had aji de gallina. Hers was better as the chicken was not really
shredded for my dish. I liked the flavor of the sauce but the chicken was just
cooked and chopped for mine. We had a
couple of Cuscenas as well. The waiter
there suggested we go to “Dassy’s” for the Patriots game and we were able to
look it up and find it was only about 15 minutes walking so we decided to visit
Duffy’s Sports Grill. Walking there was
a bit treacherous as google maps had us hit the wrong side of the road and we
had to cross a highway, but we did make it.
At the bar we had to wait a while to be seated but they had
tons of TVs so we could see the game fairly easily. The game was already started by the time we
got there. Apparently Gronk already scored a touchdown just before we
arrived. Obviously there were tons of
Dolphins fans there but there were no small number of Patriots fans as well. We
ended up getting seated in an area with a lot of Pats fans so it was safer.
Still I think the Miami fans are very fair weather and the support for their
team seemed limited at best, especially as the game went on and it was obvious
the Pats were going to win. Daniela got
the place to sing me happy birthday while we had dessert after the game was
over. Since we had eaten at Pacha Mamma it was basically just beers while we
were watching the game.
We safely walked back to the hotel on the correct sides of
the road.
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