We left El Salvador on their independence day, September 15th, two days shy of our third wedding anniversary. Since our honeymoon in Bora Bora we have made a point of doing something special for our anniversaries, spending the first two on snorkeling/beach holidays at the Great Barrier Reef and in Fiji. This year’s destination, South Beach in Miami was, for Australian art deco fan Sam, at least as exotic as the previous two, but Californian Cindy wasn’t as excited.
Sam sensed he had some ground to make up, so he threw out the backpacker rule book and reserved a room at the Gale, a beautifully refurbished 5-star art deco hotel in the heart of South Beach, and asked for a nice room to celebrate the anniversary. An upgrade to the best room in the hotel, together with a complimentary bottle of champagne to enjoy on our huge private outdoor patio, definitely helped! The many luxuries at the hotel, including the high thread count white sheets, Italian marble bathroom, huge flat screen TV, memorable pool deck, and included admission to a beach club, were all thoroughly enjoyed after months of largely basic accommodation.
Our first meal in a western country for 6 months was a delicious traditional pizza with Italian cheese and prosciutto. Our next meal was a homesick gringo’s wet dream, featuring a massive barbecue bacon cheese burger, crinkle cut fries, a chocolate malt shake and a bottomless lemonade, all from a boutique burger joint with a cult following. For our anniversary dinner, we treated ourselves to an indulgent three course meal at a highly rated French restaurant, accompanied by a nice French wine that we would have never found on the award winning wine list without the help of an incredibly knowledgeable sommelier. Perhaps the most memorable meal of all, though, was a cuban sandwich from a tiny cuban deli a few blocks back from the beach that is a favorite for locals (and tripadvisor junkies like us).
While in Miami we rented bikes to explore the wider South Beach area, and admired all of the finest art deco buildings by foot. We spent the rest of our time laying out at either the pool or the beach club, or enjoying our first stint of Stateside shopping for six months. All in all, we both (including Cindy) really enjoyed Miami. The fact that it offered a break from the chaos and unreliable customer service that we’d become used to was just a bonus.
After our anniversary, our initial plan was to head back to start our new life (and, hopefully, jobs) in California. For a whole bunch of reasons, we’ve decided to defer that until March next year. The most important of these reasons is that in May this year, Sam’s Dad (John), the Best Man at our wedding and the best man (little b, little m) either of us has ever known, was diagnosed with Metastatic Melanoma, a nasty cancer notable for its scarcity of happy endings. Since hearing the news while in Bolivia, we have been keeping tabs on the situation and honoring John’s wishes to continue traveling and sharing our adventures on this blog. In this time, John has gone through a course of chemo on one cutting edge drug (becoming one of the 10% of patients to show positive results), and has been accepted go on to another, more promising and even more cutting edge drug. Even with this good news, by September we were both anxious to get back and see the Johny John, so after short stints in Santa Barbara (a few days for Sam and a week longer for Cindy) to see Cindy’s family, we separately flew out to Australia’s Gold Coast (Sam with a not altogether inconvenient layover in Hawaii).
While on the Gold Coast, we spent lots of time with Sam’s parents and grandparents, celebrating his mum’s birthday (she’d prefer if we didn’t share the number) and Sam’s 30th (albeit a month early). The main event, however, was Sam’s Grandad’s 80th birthday (no problems sharing that number, as he’ll tell anyone who’ll listen). It was great to catch up with most of Sam’s family, and many close friends that may as well be family, at the party (the notable absentee being Sam’s very pregnant and very very disappointed sister, who was grounded on doctor’s orders). Grandad (and, equally, Gran) is our inspiration, having visited 88 countries, and he was still looking pretty nimble on the dance floor for his age (80, in case you didn’t catch it).
The other thing we spent a lot of time doing on the Gold Coast (apart from eating and drinking) was preparing for the next part of our traveling adventure… that's right, the adventure continues, this time in South East Asia! The plan is to spend three and a half months in Sri Lanka, India, Nepal, Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia and Vietnam (maybe others if we can fit them in) before returning to Australia to spend more time with Sam’s parents, meet our new niece/nephew and attend the wedding of one of our closest friends (Sam as a groomsman).
We’ll keep our blog going, so please continue reading! If anyone has any ideas for places we should go to, things we should see, or affordable hotels/hostels we should stay at, please let us know.
We’ll keep our blog going, so please continue reading! If anyone has any ideas for places we should go to, things we should see, or affordable hotels/hostels we should stay at, please let us know.