On Friday, after three full days in Miami (which again felt like one maybe) we had checked out of the hostel (getting the money back for the one day we cancelled required some negotiation) and got into her the cabriolet with Gerlinde heading towards key west. On the way we missed the Whole Foods, but stopped by a Walmart to get some food and drinks (they sell water in a one gallon – 3.79 litres – container for $1, which is enough for a whole day with these hot temperatures and being active). The nature of the keys is incredible, but you also get another impression of what rich people like. A lot of the land is still protected, but everything else boasts expensive mansions, gardens and cars.
We stopped at a tourist information about one hour before arriving in Key West. They gave us a map, but a hotel room would have been about $50 per person, so we decided to sleep in the car. Unfortunately I put my camera on top of the car and forgot it there, so when we arrived, I called them and they had indeed found the camera. We would pick it up on the way back, so I had no camera in Key West.
We wanted to see the famous sunset, so we settled at a nice restaurant right at the sunset bulevard. At first we had some ice tea (with free refill) and afterwards some real food. I wanted to try lobster so I ordered the lobster burger and it was really delicious.
We also booked a snorkeling tour for Saturday before we went off looking for a place to sleep. Since all the keys are small islands place is somehow scarce so we ended up on a nice spot with a facility to water boats, but where parking was prohibited. It was extremely hot, so it was difficult to sleep. After midnight we walked around a bit and saw a police car pass by without light first, and then observed a sheriff speeding after cars to pull them out of traffic. After he was done with one car he came back and came right towards us pulling into our parking lot, so we thought we would definitely be screwed. Luckily he was just turning to follow the next car, so we went back relieved, to get some more hours of sleep.
On Saturday we went to Subway for breakfest. They were really unfriendly and the food was mediocre, but at least we weren’t entering the catamaran with an empty stomach. It was a huge boat and relatively crowded. Drinks were free and the weather was extremely nice. The ride was about an hour at a pretty fast pace and soon we were snorkeling around the riff, looking at very colorful fishes. Together with Gerlinde I went pretty far away from the boat and almost hit the rocks at a shallow point, because with the high waves navigating was not too easy. Additionally you couldn’t see very far underwater (I admit having tried to watch out for sharks closely). Still it was a very nice experience – we even had showers on the boat to get rid of the salt.
Finally we went to a small Marine museum and left for Miami in the early afternoon (this time stopping at Whole Foods of course!).
