Ecuador Day 1 - First... South Beach

Our next adventure was going to be Morocco for the longest time, but then about a year ago we got together with Alex and Kim and revisited our "priority" list together... an adhoc, definitely not documented list of places that we wanted to visit sooner than later... these can include "wildlife potentially affected by climate change in the future", "expensive places to visit while we are still working", "overall bucket-list trips", and lo and behold, the Galapagos got bumped forward.  No sooner were we group conference calling with a very helpful sales rep for Lindblad Expeditions (the defacto National Geographic adventure travel company) then we had placed a deposit for the trip.

Fast forward almost 12 months to the day, and Beth and I were on the first leg there - to Miami.  Lindblad basically includes a return flight from Miami to Guayaquil or Quito, Ecuador (it's free....FREE!), and we were not interested in complex, potentially moving/cancelling/delaying flights, so we choose to do a flight at a time and take in some different places on the way.

We had a day and a night in Miami on the way there and on the way back, so we chose two different areas since it was our first time there.

South Beach was up first.  Oddly, when we left Toronto we were in the middle of a heat wave... almost 30 degrees, but that still didn't prepare us for the blast of heat and humidity we got coming out of the airport.  A French woman we later ran into said that when she had first arrived and opened the door to the outside of the airport, she thought she was standing under a hot fan (like an inverse AC unit) that was blasting just outside the door, but when she moved she realized it was just the weather.  WOW.

We opted for a cool little boutique hotel called Esme Miami Beach, and it turned out to be the best thing we did there.  The funky little hotel, located right beside Espanola Way (a small pedestrian boulevard with cute little restaurants lined up and down).   Its roof top patio and pool proved to be an occasional Oasis from the heat and cheese of South Beach.

Despite the heat, we set out on a walk - of course we did.  12km up and down the  excellent beach boardwalk, trying to stay in the shadows and avoiding the occasional drunken argument.  It was a tale of two cities for sure - one small city was the thriving beach hotels with music pumping and the outside beach-side pool areas half filled with customers.  The other, larger city was one of dereliction, boarded up hotels, empty hotels or under construction hotels.  And the occasional open hole in the ground of a former condo or hotel that may or may not have sunken into the ground.

Known for its art deco architecture, South Beach didn't disappoint on that front.  The almost indefinable, but know-it-when-you-see-it style is so cool.

Other than the architecture, nice looking beach and amazing walk, there was a sad side to South Beach.  It was pretty obvious that the place and the people had seen better days.  There were many homeless people, frying in the sun.  Half of the shops along Collins seemed to be dead or dying... including countless surf / swimwear / tourist kitsch shops.  Other people wandering around the area, and this was just mid-day, did not seem to be doing too well.  Then there were many women that may have been trying to mimic some kind of required "look" with injectables in three notable spots of the body.... fascinating people watching... but also a bit sad.

We had lunch at a Mexican place on Espanola way, followed by chilling by the pool and a nap - the great recharge we both sorely needed had begun.

Beth had made dinner reservations at the nearby Drexel, which was great.  Surprisingly, it was filled with locals until it got later and larger limos started dropping off the night crew...  

We walked down to Ocean drive to people watch some of the night life.  It was fascinating, followed by, kind of gross, followed by fascinating.  Observing from a distance was close enough for us, but again, we were kind of left with a feeling of sadness.  Cool architecture but in general, I just don't get the appeal.