Twas the Winter of Content - III

A long lazy sunny afternoon sitting in a cafe with a lethargic beard drinking lassitude and iced-tea is a reasonable time to dwell on the patchwork fraying fabric of Florida, the little thats survived the eroding onslaught of short-term memory. Continuing the series, heres the sunshine state through my stained-glass window. Florida, as I saw it, is the wild, overgrown and rundown backyard of America. Stepping out of the airport and through a tinny clanging train I reached a muggy bus-stop in a decrepit part of town. Two homeless black folk next to the stop bickered loudly for the amusement of the waiting commuters while a fat white cop looked on warily. The bus to Homestead took its own sweet time to arrive. Once the crowd had settled in, a homeless, talkative, unkempt dude lounged next to me and we chatted all the way to the Everglades International Hostel. This hostel, in a sketchy neighbourhood, is the hippiest of the hostels Ive stayed in. Its backyard had people lounging on hammocks tied to trees holding up a treehouse or stretched out on couches scattered under leafy tropical plants. A group of bikers had pitched their tents in one corner next to a shed holding kayaks. A cylindrical room with overhanging persian-style drapes and dark-blue lighting lined with divans, beds and couches housed primarily the Asian kids spread out, making love to their laptops while a few had crawled on top to sit and chat on the at roof of the internet-room. Needless to say it was a magnet for interesting, well-traveled and off-beat people... precisely the kind you stay in hostels to meet. My dorm had two guys from one of the scandinavian countries (I forget which) and an older South African guy whod spent his entire life on his boat transporting goods from one country to another, or taking up part-time jobs repairing boats between stints. A nervous tramp with a weakness for booze, hed traveled all around the world. The next morning over a breakfast of self-service pancakes, I met Aurelie, a French girl working with a fancy watch company in Switzerland who held a passport with visas that read like the index of an Atlas. Wed both signed up for the Everglades tour with the hostel for the day, and it was fabulous. Our guide, I forget his name, was a Nat-Geo level dude whod led expeditions to places deep in Africa, South America, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the-middle-of-nowhere in Alaska and had served as a paratrooper with the US Air Force. The rst part of our tour was the Anhinga trail, named after this bird on the left. The trail is a boardwalk built over swamps with a startlingly high density of birds and alligators, in spite of the tourist stampedes. Gators beadily eyeing our group had a tantalizing buffet

selection consisting of French cuisine, Chinese and Japanese delicacies, their staple fattening American diet and of course, a lean bony Indian starter to whet their appetites.

The second part of our tour was quite literally off the beaten track. We parked by the road in the middle of nowhere and proceeded to wade knee-deep through Cyprus dome swamps right next to the sunning alligators and snakes.

Rudely awoken owls stared crossly at us as we squelched our way through this livingroom of the gators, with exceptionally muddy feet. The long forms written in legalese that the hostel had made us sign for the tour now made perfect sense. A pretty Chinese girl with ambitions of being an American-by-marriage was squeamish about getting wet and clambered on to our guide, below-right.

Wet and hungry we rolled into the visitors center of the park, next to the Everglades dock, and lunched on sandwiches and chips by the sea. Sprawled on the grass, sunbathing and swapping tales of the travels wed taken around the world.

After lunch we went kayaking in a creek, through narrow channels between dense elephant-grass and soggy marsh with crocs and gators oating an arms length away. Keeping a respectful distance from a massive croc, that our guide called the Croczilla, he told of a previous trip where a guy had panicked and plonked into the brackish water right next to a gator and hed had to jump in to help him back on to the unstable kayak, while his own kayak oated away. Fortunately there were no mishaps on our trip. I didnt take my camera with me here, so have no celluloid memories of the place. We rowed back to our van with the setting sun, before the mosquitoes swarmed. Damp, tired and satiated we trundled on back to the hostel on our bumpy ride.

That night at the hostel was a pizza night, baked over a tandoor in the backyard. I had planned on leaving for a canoeing trip up the everglade coast to camp on deserted beaches deeper in the park the following day. The park only had two-person canoes though so it was fortunate that Aurelie too was looking for a similar trip. She was excellent company, all throughout. We rented a car the next morning, bought supplies and drove up to the Everglades dock. The weather-gods though werent as gracious though, with squalls and high windgusts expected on the ocean. So we decided to hike down to the beach instead. The sweaty hike through mosquito-infested scraggly forests with cobwebbed, drooping branches gave a good idea of the tough terrain that native Americans had once thrived in. Present-day Americans though seemed less resourceful. We stumbled upon a guy studying insects, wearing round professorial glasses, a hat and shoes and... nothing else. Wildlife truly roams freely in the Everglades. The overgrowth of the jungle at times gave way to a wide-open prairies of knee-high weeds swaying in the ocean breeze. In a few hours, the trail petered out altogether into a boggy morass that we squelched through to reach our destination, the deserted and ironically named Clubhouse Beach.

The beach was a narrow pebble-strewn stretch between the marshes and the sea. We set up tent and collected driftwood before the sun set. The stiff sea-breeze that had kept us from canoeing was now a blessing as it kept the swarms of mosquitoes away. It was nice to have a steaming veg stew and cheese sandwiches, cooked on a crackling re next to a gargling ocean under a clear night sky.

The next morning we packed up and set off early after a quick breakfast. We had a long hike back and were running short on drinking water.

Then followed a long drive down to Key Largo. These various little Keys are strung together like a keychain by the wide Highway 1, which does looks kind of ridiculous at places where these tiny islets are just wide enough for the road and nothing else. We stayed at a cheap inn by the sea, near the John Pennekamp Coral Reef state park. Next morning began withan excellent breakfast of eggs, potato rashers, toasts, coffee and several etceteras at Mrs Macs Kitchen, an old family-run establishment nearby. Scuba-diving in the Coral Reel park was closed for the day due to rough seas so we checked out the Crane Point museum nearby. It recorded the history of native tribes who lived there for centuries before the Spanish wiped them out. It also preserved a patch of the primitive coastal rainforest fronting the ocean along with a rescuecenter for injured birds.

No visit to Florida is complete without a visit to its beaches and some of the most pristine beaches are found at the Bahia Honda State park. The drive up to the park was a beautiful stretch with a seven-mile long bridge spanning the sparkling blue ocean. One of the beaches at the State park was open to the rough sea and a couple of kitesurfers arced back and forth skipping over the waves. A smaller beach on the other side was a sheltered cove, with water perfect for a swim.

We stopped for dinner on the way back at Keys Fisheries and Market, a deli-style restaurant serving the catch of the day on a wooden porch overlooking the sea. It was a nice spot to catch the sun as it drowned in the green waters after a hard days work. The next morning, with the sea still choppy, we headed back to South Miami. Back to the hustle and noise of a city known for its party-life. The hostels near South beach are excellent if youre of the nocturnal persuasion. Kind of noisy if youre not. The south Miami beach nearby is the Baywatch of the Eastern coast... beaches with beautiful sand, surf and people.

A string of restaurants and dance bars crowded the boulevard lining the beach. Sparsely peopled during the day it became a different animal at night. Not too many snaps of the place though so will wrap it up here. The Sunshine State has a lot to offer anyone who loves the sea. The swamps of the Everglades are raw and wild in a way few places on Earth still are, the Keys have pristine beaches and unmatched scuba and snorkeling spots while Miamis south beach is The party-capital of the US. For a tting end to my winter of content, heres to Florida...