Day 13 Miami and Little Havana

Friday, November 11, 2016
Miami, Florida, United States
Docked in Miami around 6 am—a beautiful sunrise over the water. Since this is where we're going through immigration, we’re called to disembark by groups. While visiting with French Canadian friends, our group is called, so that’s the end of our conversation, as we’re sent to a short, fast US Citizen line, while they are in a long line for non-citizens. Sorry/désolé. It’s quick into a taxi driven by a Haitian who didn’t want to speak French and be identified as Haitian; he started by speaking with us in Spanish, pretending to be Dominican.

It’s off to Little Havana, following the tips in National Geographic Traveler . Once the authentic heart of the community, today the main street is full of kitchy tourist shops, cigar stores where we can watch workers roll the stogies, some good coffee and some bad food. Dozens of "old" men (people our age) were in Domino Park playing their hearts out. We had read about a tree holy to Santeria believers, so we had to find it, which we did, in a park on a side street where we sat and talked to some locals in French and Spanish. Everyone got into the Caribbean spirit: Jq not only bought a new guayabera shirt, but he had also unbuttoned the top buttons on the shirt he was wearing: ay caramba!

After exhausting the tourist scene we called for another cab, again a Haitian who didn’t want to speak French, and back to the ship.

At 5 pm small harbor boats raced giving water cannon salutes. Was this for Veterans Day, or more likely it was to send off the cruise ships leaving on their 4 or 7 day cruises, because right after the salute, ships started pulling out one-by-one, each with different age groups and ambiance. A four-day Norwegian cruise was filled with roaring millennials with drinks in hand, a German AIDA ship was much more sedate, and then a few more ships. We were the last to leave Miami with city lights twinkling under the night sky.
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