Miami Vice

My Vice with Miami !!!

For all our 8 months of travelling South America we half expected that the biggest culture shock would be landing in the loud land of the United States in the sunny resort city of Miami.

Even though it`s a country we are all too familiar with due to media and globalisation it is still surprising to actually experience it.
Though for us, the experience was short.

The sun wasn`t shining as a cyclone had just swept through the state leaving clouds and rain behind. Still, I was excited to be entering an English speaking again, while Joel was beaming at the thought of meeting his idol, Mickey Mouse at Disney world. Both these notions were fast crushed on arrival as we learnt that Disney world was in Orlando (a land far, far away) and everybody in Miami is a Latin American immigrant, so everyone in Miami speaks Spanish.

While still in the airport sipping our Starbucks we next learnt that we had arrived in Miami on Superbowl weekend- which happened to be held in Miami. We were excited because Superbowl in the U.S`s biggest sporting event and the city was buzzing with celebrities, athletes and activities. It soon dawned on us however, that we were without accommodation in a city full of sports fans from around the country. It was no easy task to find ourselves a bed as everything was either booked out or the prices had doubled. We ended up settling for a room that cost the same as about 8 nights accommodation in Ecuador as that was the cheapest we could find.

Once settled into our hotel we made our way out for South Beach where the pre-game action was. We were so accustomed to the buses of South America- whereby you can go anywhere at anytime- and thought a heavily populated city of the U.S would be the same. But this country runs on oil and everyone loves their cars. All the `vehicles´ are hotted up with mag wheels, tinted windows, glitzy paint job and are the size of a small apartment. Especially all the stretched ones. Stretched limo`s, stretched 4X4`s, even stretched hummers. Buses appeared to be highly unfashionable. After much waiting around and changing buses we made it South Beach to be met by a people parade.

Ocean drive had been closed to traffic and the place was packed with people. It was like being in a P Diddy film clip (who was also in town) with all the homeboys with their over sized clothing and bling-bling, and the booty girls with under sized clothes and over sized sunglasses. Plus all skaters on their boards and blades, the beach babes, the party revellers all glammed up for the big night ahead and the sports fans shouting `Go Bears` or `Go Colts`.

While it was tempting to stay and party with JLo, Fergie, Hulk Hogan, the `tweedle dee` and `tweedle dumb` Hilton sisters, Magic Johnson and the numerous other celeb`s in town (apparently over 1000 private jets were flying in- no wonder the U.S is slow to admit there is a global warming problem), we had to get back to the bus stop for the last bus at 8pm, and opted for a night in our hotel with cable TV.

We awoke on Superbowl Sunday to dismal weather and decided we`d tasted enough of Miami and raced to the airport to make the next flight to Guatemala. While we made it in time to make the flight the staff at American Airlines stuffed us around for an hour so that by the time we were issued a boarding pass the flight was `closed`. We missed it by 3 minutes.

As I write this we are sitting on a plane waiting to take off to Guatemala 7 hours later. We spent a lovely day in the Miami airport cruising from Starbucks to Starbucks (I counted 6). It`s raining outside and the Superbowl kicked off 10 minutes ago and I couldn`t care less.

So if you`re heading to Miami make sure you check the weather first and find out if there are any grand events. I can`t tell you much about the city itself but if you want to know where to get a coffee at the airport- hit me up.