Fernweh and Food: Salud, Por Que La Belleza Sobra

Adventure: Miami

When flying to a city in which you know no one and are not looking to be a total hermit, the best way to meet non-sketchy people are to stay in a hostel (meet them before the free happy hour tour starts), or Couch Surf. Pros and cons to both methods, but for this one trip, I decided to Couch Surf.

I started finding strangers on the internet and asking to stay with them 4 years ago, when I had 3 weeks off from my nannying gig in Paris, and decided to got to Spain. I had such a great time while surfing there that I tried to stay active in the community as much as possible. Met great friends through it, and it was how I found a place to stay initially when I moved to Pittsburgh. All in all, it's been great for me, and I've met some wonderful people through it.

My host told me she'd be working that evening, and given how I got it in my head that the Fruit and Spice Park was going to be the most amazing place ever (it totally was), I did my own thing, and ended up having dinner at the restaurant she works at. Yup, I found a random stranger on the internet, and she happens to be a cook!

So, for all you skeptics about Couch Surfing out there, I feel like I have to make the case for how wonderful it is, but for that to happen, you'd have to have an open mind, and have traveled/stayed in hostels/ met people out of your comfort zone. If that hasn't happened, well, I'm sorry, I feel like your life is a little less rich for it. In my case, I've only surfed in Europe, where there is a distinctly different attitude about travelers, and meeting strangers, I feel. Hospitality, is the word, I believe. It is my current industry, as is my host's, so when I got to her house, this was the welcome I received:

A curated selection of Cuban and Guatemalan pastries. Couch Surfers are awesome!!

Friday morning was spent taking the sun at Bill Baggs State Park, and me getting really hungry when I saw a live sea urchin next to my foot...

No sea urchin in this picture, but this star fish was bigger than my head. I love how clear the water is!

I met up with my host in the late afternoon, when we had my first bite of Cuban food. I guess after years of rationing, to be in the land of plenty it means to have plates that match it. I inhaled a plate of steak with rice, beans, and tostones, and then killed half of my host's breaded chicken, and then we went and got chincharones, pork belly, plantain chips, and a mamey milkshake. All for me. Yes. Fatty.

Mesa's BBQ. Home of the best chincharones ever.

Saturday brought me to my beloved pupusas, at the Pupusa Factory. So most of the immigrant population has been priced out of Miami proper, and probably Little Havana as well. Hialeah is the border town/Latin mecca where you're kinda screwed if you don't speak Spanish. Immigrants tend to stay with their own, and so next to Hialeah is Doral, where property prices have been driven up by rich Venezuelans and Colombians.

These pupusas are huge!! I normally order 3, but I barely finished 1! The one on the left is a shrimp and cheese one, with rice flour masa!

I did insist on going to Little Havana for some ice cream. I will admit, the movie Chef was very instrumental in getting me there. I had grand plans of dancing the night away at Hoy Como Ayer and eating cubanos at Versailles. Everyone I spoke with told me I was insane. No one goes to Little Havana for everything, and the atmosphere at these places are old, like senior citizen old. I guess it's a nostalgia factor; old Cubans who came when Castro took power, and in building this little enclave, this "little" Havana, it's how they kept their way of life alive, from playing dominoes at the park, to the multitude of cigar shops. And now, they are nothing more than a tourist attraction themselves.

"See here, a fossilized Cuban in his natural habitat..." I sat and chatted with my host's sister as I watched tourists hover over these men doing noting but going about their days, and yet their customs and habits will be recorded and Instagrammed....

I don't think the spirit of Little Havana has died yet, especially if there's such sweet spots as Azucar. Reviews of exotic flavors led me there, and while there was a lack of current crazy flavors, I did have the most delicious almond ice cream ever. None of the sickening almond extract, it was like eating churned almond butter. I had that and a Tagalong-peanut butter concoction. Que delicioso!

My eyes led me to this corner explosion of senses, the Cubaocho Art and Research Center was a block down from Azucar, and wow. Just wow. Instead of rushing off to have dinner after inhaling so much ice cream, I just had to sit down and take it all it. And have a mojito. I guess it's a Cuban saying, after you say "Salud", you follow it up with "por que la bellaza sobra," which all translates "to your health, because you're already so beautiful."