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Flying on standby flights you must adhere to a certain dress code - business casual they say. Of course we have nothing of the sort in our dirty little backpacks. So...we had to buy stuff in Puerto Iguazu. To cut this long story short, this resulted in me having just got off a plane in Miami wearing particularly pointy, black, suede cowboy boots with full cuban heels. I seem to be fitting in just fine…
We ended up spending a night at a nearby hotel before tracking down Eleanor's Mum and Dad fresh off the cruise and looking nice and relaxed other than for a missing camera which had gone AWOL somewhere between the ship and the plane. We quickly went to pick up our car (which we can't drive as our driving licences were stolen in Chile) and drove down to Naples where we had booked ourselves a nice looking condo on a large golf resort called Lely. We'd stayed there a few years ago with my parents but not in the same part as this time - called Greenlinks. The condo turned out to be great, spacious and looking onto the bright green of a fairway which contrasted the lake between us and it and the blue sky above.
We decided to try and see plenty over the course of the week - starting with a visit to Naple's famous pier, which is apparently old but that means American old, not UK. Either way, it's just a pier but it is filled with a swarm of fishermen trawling the deep water off its sides. We saw some pretty unexpected catches - some baby hammer head sharks, a ray and a few large silvery fish I didn't know. In the background large bottlenose dolphins would surface from the sea and Eleanor and Janet are pretty sure they saw a manatee near the shore. A really nice place just to watch the world go by.
The following day we went to the corkscrew swamp which had been touted to us as a must see. I think they forgot the 'not' in the middle and the 'unless you are a particularly avid bird watcher' at the end. I'm not, it turns out Eleanor's Mum is so we walked through the swamp stopping particularly regularly as the very enthusiastic and friendly guy and his wife in front of us took great pleasure in pointing everything out to us. Eleanor's Dad somehow wriggled out of this and disappeared, resurfacing in the car well over an hour later as I collapsed, mind numb, into the waiting escape vehicle…to make up for my boredom we ended up going to a meal in a traditional southern US style resturant called Crackilng Jacks - all to be overfaced with massive plates of bbq and fried animal in various forms including alligator for the brave.
Next day up and something to look forward to - I went fishing on a deep sea boat with Ian while Eleanor went on some bikes along with Janet - the bikes were free after the girls bought a booklet of vouchers from some bloke in the street. Having had Eleanor abuse my fishing skills all day (and actually for as long as I can remember) we set out on the boat with a bet - If we caught dinner Eleanor would buy us all a round of drinks (despite not actually having any money left at the moment - she was that confident). So that'll be why we arrived back home 4 hours later with 3 fish, yep I said three fish, not to mention the biggest catch of the day from a particularly skilled, young, Scotish fisherman. Drinks enjoyed, we went to play some crazy golf so Eleanor could regain some pride (and maintain the Brown family record having beaten the whole Horner family on this very golf course years earlier - a fact forgotten by most but remembered and reminded regularly by one). Unfortunately, this was not Eleanor's day and with my finely tuned hunter-gatherer eye I thrashed them all…sorry
… moths starving in Eleanor's wallet, we went home to cook up dinner. Menu of mini shrimp tortillas with chipotle beans and cheese followed by freshly caught snapper fillets with an orange and red onion marmalade served over rice.
Well slept and egos recovered the next thing up was an airboat trip in the Everglades - half price due to the voucher book - but certainly not half speed as we flew threw the swamps spotting alligators and herons as we swept past and laughing at Ian for holding onto his baseball cap the entire trip..
We'd liked the Everglades so much we grabbed a big canoe the next day me, Eleanor and Janet all went paddling across a big lake and into the mangroves. While we got stranded on a sandbank at one point due to some useless directing (cough, cough…oops) we ended up finding a gap in the mangroves to get our canoe through. No other boats or people around meant that it was really quiet and peaceful. Fish were jumping all over the place, taunting my now rodless hands and after an hour or so we saw a stange wake under the shallow water…
Something big splashed ahead of us, then a dorsal fin popped out of the water - a dolphin! It had come in from the Gulf of Mexico and was obviously hunting fish. Oddly it was by itself in the water and this was at points no more than a metre deep but it certainly knew what it was doing as it powerfully ran rings around our feeble attempts of sneaking up on it. We floated there watching the animal appear and disappear again, following its progess from the wake it kicked up (even though under water) as its powerful body sliced through the shallow water…wow…
We finished the day off with a free cruise out of Tin City - one of Naples' old harbours, watching the sunset and drinking cocktails as we floated past plastic looking, movie set homes worth millions of dollars. A dinner on the harbour (sans wine due to American strictness on ID carrying) and the end of a great fun day as well as our time in Miami. Tomorrow we fly to Lima.
Actually, we know nothing about Lima, we just haven't had time to look. Instead, we are so close to where my sister lives we have decided to go and visit them in Atlanta instead.
Another plane journey there the next day was followed by a few days in Atlanta very nicely accomodated by big sis Vicky. Visit to a baseball batting cage was lots of fun and of course the obligatory shopping. Still can't quite believe how much cheaper so many things are in the US -we really get ripped off back at home. Anyway, we finished up with a home cooked BBQ it Vicky's house before going back to Miami where we spent another night while we decided where to go next.
What do you mean? I hear you say…I know, the plan had been Lima. That's where our flight home is from, but Macchu Pichu has only just re-opened and that was one of the main reasons we wanted to go to Peru. We've only got about 10 days left before we go home and we have had contact saying that it is still very difficult to get hold of the necessary train tickets we need. We don't want to spend our last 10 days frustrated in a queue for tickets so we've made a call.
Honduras it is, heading towards the bay islands for some SCUBA diving fun
- comments
Mum We had a great time with you both in Florida. Thanks for making the big diversion to see us. It was the 'icing on the cake' of our holiday! Great quality time and nice n'relaxed. PS You didn't mention Ian's big catch that was scooped up by a pelican back at the quay!