After the rain storm that hit Friday afternoon we were hopeful that the skies would stay nice and clear for Saturday as we booked the Little Havana Food Tour which started just after noon. We weren't sure what parking would be like in Little Havana so we gave ourselves lots of time to get there and from what we could see on Mapquest the starting location for the tour would be easy to find... and it was.
The core of Little Havana is a 4 block stretch along 8th Street going east from about 17th Ave to 13th Ave. Having done a bit of research, we knew of a couple of parking lots within about a 10 block walk into Little Havana, but we decided to just try for some side street parking a little closer to where we would meet the tour group. Success again as we found a spot a block off 8th and 14th. We still had some time to spare so just decided to wander along 8th. We came across a fellow selling Panama hats and stopped for a look. Brian tried one on just as our tour guide, Mirka (same woman as lead the tour of South Beach), happened by and told us that this fellow was one of the best to buy from. So we did (never mind the snarly look!)...
Further along 8th we came upon Domino Park. This was pretty cool. A little square with permanent tables for Domino playing. Mirka later explained that Dominoes is the national pastime in Cuba and is very popular in Little Havana. Originally this was an empty lot where folks set up rickety little card tables for this very social event. Eventually the city stepped in and funded the creation of the permanent Domino Park. Very stringent rules about no gambling, fighting, guns, knives etc with the penalty basically being disbarment from the area by your peers. Mirka said they have virtually no problems here.
Anyway, on to the food tour...we met up with Mirka and the others outside a gallery on 8th between 17th and 16th. There were 12 of us all together so a bit bigger crowd than the 4 of us on the South Beach Tour. Two of the people on this one were freelance travel writers so they were pretty active in asking questions etc. It was lots of fun.
This tour normally includes artist studios, but because there was a Cuban arts festival elsewhere in the city that day, many of the galleries were closed. The only artist gallery we were able to visit was a fellow who uses imagery of god/saints. The slaves who came to Cuba brought their own gods and blended them with Christian saints to have a religion that would be permitted by the Catholic Spaniards. It is similar to Santeria, which is still actively practiced in many Caribbean regions. As it turned out, we parked our car in a very safe place - directly across the street from a large tree where santeria offerings are placed, so maybe we would get some spin-off security from the gods. Must have worked, the car was as we left it when we returned.
Our first food stop was a restaurant called Le Pub. It has been at this location for a long time and the owner, although elderly, still comes in every day. We tasted tostones, which were far too filling! The cup that the filling sits in is actually made from plantains, so it is gluten free. The plantains are fried until about half done, then pressed into shape in a tostoniere which is a hinged thing sort of like a citrus squeezer, except the shape is more like a muffin (flat on the bottom). The shells are then finished in the oven. The fillings we had were picadillo (beef and olives) and chopped chicken. I was expecting spicy, but it was quite bland and needed a few splashes of picante sauce to liven it up. We had cortado with it - the cuban coffee with lots of sugar.
We continued on down the street to the domino park where Mirka explained the rules. One wall has a mural of political leaders who attended some Pan American conference. I spotted Jean Cretien and while I was taking a picture an old fellow asked me where I was from. When I told him Canada, he said Jean Cretien had spent most of the conference out at the beach smoking cigars.
Next onto a bakery where we had guava pasteries. Along Calle Ocho (8th Street) we noticed 'stars' in the sidewalk. Mirka said there were supposed to be for distinguished people, but like most things in Miami, a little graft goes a long way. One of the nicest stars is for Manuel Capo, an annoying furniture store owner who had cheesy TV ads but who greased the right palms to get a star.
We next visited a fruit shop and sampled mamey (yummy, like a sweet potato except a bit fruitier) and sugar cane juice served over ice. Way too sweet for us, but it was cold and quite refreshing. Apparently you have to drink it immediately after it is made or it starts to turn an odd colour and crystallize.
Next stop was a restaurant where we tasted plantain chips and medio noche (midnight) sandwiches. This is a Cuban sandwich but with sweet bread rather than plain bread. In South Beach we had sampled the same type of sandwich in a fancy hotel where the newest Iron Chef works, I preferred this one at a far less fancy family style restaurant. By now we are getting total starch overload as all the samples are big enough for a small lunch.
Mirka told us that the people of Little Havana were very passionate about politics especially as related to Cuba (of course). Near 8th and 13th there is a memorial to Cubans who died in the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion. As we stood in our group with some pictures being taken, a fellow came up to us and told us to really think about this... "... it is not just a pretty thing for tourists to take pictures of" he said "... the situation in Cuba has not changed and there are still people trapped there". He went on to say that we should make sure we take that message back home along with the "pretty pictures"!
Next stop was a night club which features the largest collection of rum in the Miami area. We had a taste of a white rum from Puerto Rico - very strong. I like the smell of rum better than the taste and it was a little too hot out for rum but the bar was beautiful; filled with art work and had a great inner courtyard. We also spoke with a musician who was getting ready for his gig that night. All the night things in this area don't get going until late (he said he might get on stage by 10pm) so this is as close to a nightclub scene as we are likely to see.
Mirka pointed out a nice shop that sells guyabarras- the Cuban style shirt that you see everywhere. She said the quality was very good and the nice ones are made of Irish linen. She commented that the purple-ish one in the window was particularily something that you would find in Miami, so after the tour we returned and got a shirt for Brian (in the Miami colour, of course).
The last stop on the tour was an ice cream shop called Azucar (Spanish for sugar)...
...that had great art and good ice cream. The lady who owns it is a former banker who decided to make a career change when the recession started. Her family used to have a food business of some type, so she went back to university to do some food science (if I had known you could study ice cream at university, how different my life might have been!) and is now a great success. In fact, the day of our visit she was featured in the Miami Herald.
This was another great tour we would highly recommend. We saw a part of the city which we might not have visited due to not knowing where to go and ate some darned tasty things which we do not have at home. All in all, a day well spent.
After the tour finished we stayed and chatted a bit with Mirka. Very nice person and most excellent tour guide... these food tours are highly recommended.
Sunday we headed across highway 41 which cuts an almost straight line from Miami to the Gulf Coast. This is the Tamiami Trail which interestingly enough (for us) goes into Miami and becomes 8th street cutting through the heart of Little Havana. Tamiami stands for "Tampa to Miami" and after reaching the Gulf Coast heads north up to Tampa. The highway passes through the middle of the Big Cypress National Preserve just north of the Everglades. There are canals along the side pretty well all the way and we estimated we saw a couple of dozen of gators...
We no sooner turned left onto the Tamiami Trail that a pickup truck pulled out from a side road ahead of us. So, what's the big deal about that? Well, this truck had two mattresses in the back and from what we could see there was nothing holding them down. Kris immediately commented "...we know where this is going" and we held back a way from the truck. About 10 or so miles down the highway, sure enough, the top mattress came flying off, bounced on the pavement and over the railing down towards the canal. We couldn't see for sure, but it looked like it stopped before it plunged into the water where it might have made a good resting pad for an alligator or two!
We were told that we would likely see alligators in the canal along the road so we stopped numerous places where there was room to pull over with the wee trailer. All in all we figured we saw at least a couple of dozen along the way. At one point there was a bit of a crowd beside the road so we slowed as we went by. On the side was a very large alligator which apparently had been run over during the night. There were about a half dozen buzzards having a good old feast. Later we stopped at the Big Cypress visitor centre where we wandered along the canal and saw several more of these large critters.
We stayed at the Woodsmoke RV Park just south of Fort Myers for the night. We had a nice spot under huge pine trees so there was lots of shade. They also have a very nice pool. We chatted with one older fellow who said he has lived there for 10 years. He enjoys a swim every day and on this day, after enjoying the pool he was off home to watch some golf on TV.
Monday we completed the journey to St. Petersburg/Tampa where we decided to see the Wednesday afternoon game between the Rays and the Blue Jays. We stayed at the Madiera Beach KOA for three nights. Nice place, lots of shade, good pool BUT too many not so cute squirrels. The little buggers are true pests because they have come to expect people to feed them and there are lots of them. Even the office manager acknowledged that they are a huge pest but they don't do anything about them... duh... maybe when the park is jammed full there are enough people for the squirrels to bother that most people don't mind. Well, the three nights we were there, there were very few others and we became the main squirrel target. We literally could not open the back of the car or the trailer door and turn our backs as one of them would be inside in a flash.
Tuesday was a drive over the causeways to Tampa, then to Clearwater and back to St Petersburg. We drove the Gulf Blvd from Clearwater south to just north of St Petersburg. This is what over development is all about. The entire coastline is nothing but one large gated highrise condo or hotel after another for mile after mile. Ok, there is the odd little public access spot but driving down the coast we were never more than a couple of hundred yards from the water but did not actually see it except for when we went over a canal bridge.
On the way over to Tampa we stopped at Tropicana Field to buy tickets for Wednedsay's game and opted for seats on the press box level almost directly behind home plate. We decided to get them the day before as, according to the Rays website, the price goes up if you buy gameday. Seems silly when they are very hard up for fans these days. Tuesday night's game drew all of 12,000 fans.
Getting to and from the park was very easy and parking was plentiful... well, when you are drawing such small crowds there is lots of parking available (on this day the attendance was announced at 11,471). We opted to pay a bit extra and park close in to avoid a longer walk as it was a very hot day. Tropicana is a sealed stadium (ie the roof doesn't open) although the ticket guy said that on a rainy day, you might get dripped on!
Our seats were excellent with good views to all corners of the park and close enough for a foul ball, although on this day, none came our way.
The game was close with a couple of home runs (Bautista and Encarnacion for the Jays) and went into extra innings tied at 4 apiece before BJ Upton ended it in the 11th with a walk off double scoring the winning run for the home team.
Overall wins for our trip: Home 2 Visitor 1.
A couple of interesting things about Tropicana field are the neat rotunda you go through when entering the park from the main parking lot areas...
... and the other is the Ted Williams Hitters Hall of Fame where they have a great display of Ted Williams life and playing career along with cool displays of some of the great hitters through the history of the game...
...along with special exhibits such as Eddie Feigner (The King and his Court), Sadarha Oh (Greatest Home Run hitter from Japan) and a number of great hitters from the Negro Leagues.
In terms of ballpark food, we took our own peanuts and water but did indulge in a couple of very good Cuban sandwiches. This is also the first park where we have seen gluten free options.
While in St Petersburg we started to get serious about where to be over the Memorial Day weekend. We had hoped to stay on the east coast somewhere around St Augustine. BUT... when we phoned a place to see if we could make a reservation, our request provoked some laughter and we were told that for any long holiday weekend, along the Atlantic Coast there, reservations are required 6 months to a year in advance. YIKES! So, what to do. We decided to stay inland until after the weekend and booked a couple of days in Kissimmee at the KOA there followed by a couple of days further north to end out the weekend. We were surprised to find that Kissimmee was not fully booked as it is so close to DisneyWorld.
We again opted out of driving the easy interstate over to Orlando, instead heading north along the coast on highway 19. All urban driving with some brief stretches of rural life. We headed east through Brooksville where we stopped for lunch and a walk around the main square. Here we saw our first Confederate memorial put up by the Daughters of the Confederacy...
After a very nice lunch in Brooksville, we headed east towards Orlando/Kissimmee. Arriving in the area and driving east across highway 192 just south of Disneyworld, Epcot, etc etc it appears this area has indeed been a bit hard hit over the past few years as there are numerous hotels and stores closed and boarded up. We found the KOA and settled in for a couple of days. Friday we went over to the Premium Outlets where Kris picked up 3 cool necklaces then drove over to the Gaylord Palms Hotel complex for a nice lunch. While driving from the Outlets to the Gaylord Palms we could see a large fire not that far off to the east. From I-4 we could actually see the flames above the trees. (Yes, we were on an interstate but without the trailer and were just getting across town, so not a change of travel pattern!).
No, we didn't do Disneyworld or any of the other tourist attractions; it was afterall, a holiday weekend and large crowds were anticipated.
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