Sandstorms and Swamp

As the sun drops down behind the palm trees, so comes our brief visit to Miami to an end.  Was really decent to get a nice rest and enjoy the warmth after busy, chilly NYC and we even managed to get some stuff done, stuff being fighting with American Airlines on changing our flight schedules. Quite the ordeal with them claiming our travel agent (Kilroy) had done some kind of mistake with the ticket booking.. such bull. We double checked and the ticket was a-ok. Be wary of them if traveling on RTW tickets, they've had a history of being difficult when it comes to stuff like this. Also their website denies sales of tickets to non-US/UK/latin america credit card holders. Hah!

On to Miami.. (insert a David Caruso line of your choice here) well, we figured it's best to see the city from the saddle of a bike so we hopped on a bus, grabbed some nice cruiser cycles from downtown and headed for South Beach. Weather's been acting up here for the past few days and the beach itself was totally off limits due to the nasty wind blowing up sand at speeds of a neutron collider. Took a few hours to ride around and do some bikini shopping for the Mrs. and to inspect the cerveza selection on the pedestrian street. On the way back rode down to Bayside which is some kind of wharf side market / entertainment center at downtown Miami and enjoyed some refreshments at Bubba Gump Shrimp Co (I cannot believe they productized that) and after that just .. spaced out making arrangements for the trip.

The best part of the visit here was definitely the half day trip to the Everglades. Now, Everglades national park with its area of some 100 by 160 km is the world's largest swamp land as well as the basis for Miami's freshwater supply (according to the tour guy). The water is only around 50cm deep by average and filled with life! Alligators, turtles, birds, fishes.. saw them all, about 10 gators really up close too, which was just great. Blazing on the grassy swamp at top speed in the airboat was exhilarating.

Update 10.10.2010: all USA pictures now online here