Day 62-65 Miami

We arrived into Miami in the early afternoon, made our way through the various checkpoints and immigration stations until we finally got to the baggage area. It took us 5 minutes of standing at the carousel to realise that neither of us was carrying the computer...mucho crapo. Brendan tried his luck at getting back out to the main area but that was not going to happen. So after another 30mins of waiting for security to look around the immigration station they found nothing. We had images of the bomb squad crouching around this little black bag left on the floor in immigration and the whole airport shutting down because of us. With security not finding anything we luckily convinced a very lovely lady from baggage to help us. She reluctantly took Brendan back to the only other place it could be, next to the men's bathroom. Now we must have done something right or praised PachaMama in the right way because by now it had been about an hour since we last saw our little computer and there it was, still sitting on the seat, next to the men's bathroom. We could now continue our trip.

We arrived at Kia and Carly's apartment which was essentially a resort to us. They had a beautiful apartment in an enormous apartment building overlooking the ocean, with 2 balconies to watch the afternoon storms come in and feel the hot breeze of Miami. There was an enormous pool to cool off in, a gym and all the luxuries like fast internet and English speaking news. We immediately wanted to start finding classic CSI Miami sites for Brendan to make some Horacio poses in. We went out at night for dinner with the new Miami residence and enjoyed a great catch up over a few drinks.

We spent our time in Miami doing exactly what we wanted and needed to do, chilling out with mates, stocking up on supplies for Central America, sending our winter gear home and just doing nothing. It's amazing how much you appreciate the small things again, like having a great shower with big fluffy towels that cover your whole body, being able to dunk your mouth under the tap to brush your teeth, not waiting an hour for one email to load up and many more. I got very excited, maybe too excited, when I realised I could cook in a proper kitchen.It was time to have some fun so we made pumpkin, chicken risotto and then apple crumble with ice-cream for dessert and again shared it over a few beers and wine.

Brendan and I got pretty excited when we were able to do many American cliché things in one day. We ended up having enough time so we headed out to 'Bed Bath and Beyond', then went to South Beach where we saw many bikini styles and body shapes, some real and some not, as well as other bathing suits that many people's bottoms seemed to have eaten half of. We saw Sean Penn walking the streets, Brendan bought a chocolate shake from Wendy's and we then ate huge pizza while sitting on Kia and Carly's apartment floor. We then finished it all off with some 'Chunky Monkey' ice-cream.It was a super winner day and all done while driving in a BWM convertible with the top down and Brendan and I sweating like crazy and getting burnt in the Miami sun at the same time.

After 4 days of hanging with great friends, eating amazing cereal with soy milk and blueberries (for at least 2 meals of the day for Mia, by choice), living in luxury and just relaxing, it was time to start our Central American adventure. Off to Mexico early in the morning. We hope it's not going to be this hot but somehow I think it will be.