Florida Keys -- On The Edge Of The World

1. Watching the sunset at Mallory Square at Key West. 2. Joining in the debauchery of Key West. 3. Going underwater at the John Pennekamp State Park in Key Largo. 4. Being a fly on the wall tourist on South Beach. 5. Getting close to the gators at the Glades. 6. Cruising the Seven-Mile Bridge over Pigeon Key. 7. "Wasting away again in Margaritaville." 8. Seafood! Eat it broiled, grilled or in its natural state -- sushi.

Quick Tips:

1. Be a smart traveler -- any place as touristy as Florida is full of traps. This is especially true in the South Beach stretch and along Tamiami Trail, where the gator tours are. Do some research -- a difference of a few bucks will determine how much longer you get to stay on the airboat -- and how much closer you get to the gators. 2. Be wary of what times you choose to hit the road in the Keys. The Overseas Highway (U.S. 1) which connects all the islands is a two-lane black-top, and when traffic is heavy (in the evenings), any delays will cause back-ups that could stretch across an entire key. 3. Even though the month of December promises humid warmth, the temperature reached 50 year lows of 40 in the evening -- without the sun, we just about froze on New Year's Eve on South Beach. Lesson to be learned -- never travel unprepared, no matter how cocky you may feel about the weather!

Best Way To Get Around:

South Florida is a driver's and diver's paradise. Above the ground, the Miami art deco neighborhoods make it seem like you're driving across a reel of Technicolor. Underwater, it's some of the best-kept sea-life and living corals -- it's a nice respite from the hectic tourist life above.

Not a bad choice for a simple place to rest yourself for the night. Spacious and clean rooms, right by the beach with instant access. It''s 2 miles from South Beach, a 30-40 minute stroll along a beachside wooden boardwalk, or a $7 cab ride. Prices were higher during the New Year''s period, but $75 plus taxes for four of us per night seemed like a good enough deal.
Caution: No restaurant or any amenities on premises, so be sure to get whatever you need from a grocery store closer to South Beach before you retire for the night, because you''re probably not going to return and venture back to South Beach again.

Not the most luxurious resort, but very comfortable, spacious and clean. There is a little strip of sand that isn''t much of a beach and some nice lounging spots on the pier, but don''t expect resort-esque activities. Prices were steep during the holiday period, and our usual style of deciding where to drop our bags for the night per our whim backfired on us -- earlier reservations might have saved us some money.

The night we spent at this motel has become a running joke. Right smack in the middle of Christmas week, we spent two hours driving between Islamorada and Marathon (28 miles) looking for a place to stay. Motels and hotels alike were either sold out, too expensive, or undesirable. By the time we got to Marathon, we were hungry, tired, and decided that nothing was worth pushing on to find the "right" place. Seaward offered us a take-it-or-leave-it rate of $100 -- definitely overpriced for the dump that it is. Dirty sheets, yellowed casings, dripping toilet -- the best part about staying here was being grateful for all other sub-standard accommodations I would ever encounter in my future travels.

Although we had passed by the News Cafe many times in our South Beach strolls, the only reason why we finally dined there was to escape the New Year's Eve chill on Ocean Drive. We discovered a better reason when our food arrived -- this cafe cuisine is much better than the usual, and the huge servings satisfying. No wonder Gianni Versace used to hang out here all the time.

Weather wasn't on our side on this cruise -- it alternated between sunny, cloudy, light drizzles -- and a rocky day at sea on the way back. Still, our first cruise seemed to us to be like a resort R&R -- just off-shore. The dining was exquisite, the bingo fun, and the entertainment kitschy and unintentionally campy. Don't get me wrong, it worked! It's an over-the-top vacation for when you want to take a REAL break from being the flannel-clad and intellectual traveller.

THE UPPER KEYS
In Miami, we were walking a fine line between reality and tourist fantasy; in the Keys, that's where we really teetered on the edge of the world, and here's why: The Seven-Mile Bridge. The Keys are a string of islands, like scattered pearls, off the Florida mainland, curving west towards Cuba; and each Key is connected to the other via bridges. The Seven-Mile Bridge is the longest of them all, connecting Boot Key to Pigeon Key. Originally a railroad, the modern bridge was built right next to the old one, and if you're a careful observer, you'll see that the railings on the new bridge are actually rails from the old railroad. The old railroad is now a walkway, but close to a mile across the water from Boot Key, it ends abruptly -- the classic truism of the old making way for the new. As you drive across Seven-Mile, you see nothing but the Atlantic on one side, the Gulf of Mexico on the other. Look out the windows on either side, and it feels like it's just you, the clouds, the air, the waters below. You're soaring, it's like a magic carpet ride, and beware, for this is exactly when you're whisked into that other world I have been alluding to. We stayed in Key Largo, Islamorada and Marathon in the Keys, and while each of these towns may seem just like the other -- motels, dive shops, dining shacks, seafood, margaritavilles -- each seems to have a distinctive attraction of its own. Key Largo is the John Pennekamp State Park, lauded as a diver's paradise, but really an overcrowded and touristy dive if you're one of the serious ones. The main attraction is a Christ statue, the remains of some downed ship, but the mystical allure of that wreck is offset by two deliberately sunken ships for your viewing pleasure. Islamorada is hailed as the hub of accommodations in the Keys, with grande dame Holiday Isle as its patron saint. Cabanas and tiki bars galore -- and $300 rooms during Christmas week. To truly experience the Keys, we lived the lifestyle. We did nothing substantial, we did nothing exciting, but we walked the walk and lounged our days there away. A not-so-popular, but still enjoyable activity, is a stroll and canoe through the mangrove swamps of Pennekamp, named for an environmentally active journalist. Or consider browsing the small stores along the Overseas Highway (US 1) or spending a day at the very luxurious Hawk's Cay Resort on Duck Key (secret: if you breeze in through the lobby and on to the beach side, no one would doubt that you were anyone else but a guest).

NEW YEAR'S EVE
We were back in Miami in time for New Year's Eve, and spent it on South Beach, naturally. When the clock struck midnight, the nightclubs exploded and we were drenched with champagne popped randomly in the crowd. The chilled and spilled bubbly awakened us back to reality, and warned us that we were on our way back to the Urban Way, via Miami.

Some travelers who have seen the world and have begun to tire of the spring in Paris/summer in Maine/fall in Hong Kong/winter in Zurich scene, lament on their failures at achieving the Impossible Dream -- exploring so much of the world, that you feel like you could walk off the edge of it, as if it were a precipice. Unfortunately, travel plays a sly game with our greed to see it all, because in reality, the end of one's journey signifies the start of another -- hence, the spherical nature of our globe.
But what if you left Propriety at the gate? What if, at O'Hare one wintry and snowed-in morning, you boarded the 6am flight to Miami, Florida? What if you had slipped into your luggage some Imagination, Free Spirits and Sharp Humor, and left a trail of worries and cares along the runway as you took off?

MIAMI
Art Deco in Miami is more than just an architecture; it's a lifestyle. It attempts to live as colorful a life as the city's denizens -- or is it vice versa? Art Deco, to us, was the vibrance of human traffic and surroundings that we could feel as we cabbed the 195 towards Miami Beach. It penetrated, and we absorbed.
It's interesting how the transition to a completely new scenery and lifestyle always leaves you feeling unshackled and ready to run with the wind -- physically, mentally, and emotionally. After we checked in, we drifted towards the sand (white as snow -- except that it wasn't, thankfully) and the sea (piercing blue), onto a wooden boardwalk that led us 2 miles to South Beach. And at this point, I will step aside and savor the ocean view for a lingering moment. When the colors of the intensely deep sky blue and unforgivingly white sand collide at the end of the horizon, the beauty and magnificence of this vision is so acute, so breathtaking, that this must be what they really mean when they say that dreams do come true.

In Miami, you are a tourist, no matter what sort of off beaten path travels you may have under your belt. It's really about South Beach and its flunkies -- Lincoln Road, Lummus Beach, Ocean Drive, Washington Road. Forget what the travel guides say -- if you want a town with the vibrance and spirit of South Beach, and attractions to seduce your tourist buck like Coral Castle, Coconut Grove and Villa Vizcaya, go to Los Angeles. On South Beach, explore every store inside-out and outside-in, examine every gourmet seafood platter baiting you at each al fresco beachfront restaurant, and feel free to scandalously re-create the history of each human being who crosses your line of vision -- tourist or local. And in this land of kitsch, please feel free to take a picture on the steps where Gianni Versace was slain, browse through some tacky souvenir racks, and of course, ponder your existence over that neon-colored cocktail. And because kitsch never suffers from overabundance, Star Island will fulfill your need for the grandiose and grandeur. Indulge in the sights of mansions a la Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous (wait, this IS the lifestyles of the rich and famous) -- but just don't slow down or stop too long to gape at casas de Gloria Estefan, Madonna and Ricky Martin, because the tour bus behind you is impatient to move on.

For the tourist, shopping used to be a bigger adventure back in the days when you took something away from a place you visited because you couldn't find it anywhere else, much less your hometown. These days, the enmeshment of cultures and the capability to play culture shuffleboard has taken the excitement out of souvenir shopping. Consider Lincoln Road -- the country's first pedestrian mall, and not really a road at all. There are stores here selling Balinese artifacts, quaint farmhouse antiquities, French kitchenware -- wait, we are still in Miami, right? The only truly Miami goods are designer wear -- but then again, that's not the same as buying a slice of home-made key lime pie in Key West. While a pleasant walk, Lincoln Road probably cemented my opinion of Miami as a city that doesn't really have a true heartbeat; or perhaps, it lost it somewhere along the Miami Vice way.

THE EVERGLADES
A short detour: Driving to the Everglades was the best part of our day trip down alligator way. Regrettably, we never got to explore the Little Havana where you could actually hear and feel pulsating bossa nova, but stopping in a Navarro's (Hispanic-influenced chain of drugstores) on the Tamiami Trail (US 41), one of the best experiences on this trip was encountering a checkout girl who couldn't speak or understand English. She only knew Spanish. At that moment, I truly felt that I was in the real Miami, first stop for many on the road to the American dream -- or any dream at all. Like tourists on a retro postcard, we boarded an airboat at Gator Park to get up close and personal with some gators. The entire ride lasted all of 15 minutes -- we saw a few baby gators and some wildlife, but the tour was nothing compared to another gator tour I had taken in the Louisiana swamps. Our guide attributed the poor showing to the chillier-than-usual weather -- but a quick check with friends after the trip proved that Gator Park was the bona fide tourist trap. There are indeed other tours that last at least 45 minutes, with the option of hopping off the airboat and stomping around in the knee-high waters of the Glades. The obligatory 15-minute wildlife show followed after, gator wrestling and the like. We had a snack of gator meat before continuing our road trip down to the Keys.