Key West

We picked up our rental car in the morning and started driving. We drove the 4 hours to Key West in which we drove over many bridges from island to island in order to get to the last one – Key West. The most famous bridge is called the 7 mile bridge for obvious reasons. We walked around the town to the famous Duval Street which has most of the bars and hotels in the heart of the city. We took our picture taken with the most southern point in the continental USA. Many Cubans who reach the US do it through Key West as it is the closest distance – 90 miles. We went for dinner at a Cuban restaurant which was well off the beaten track and had been recommended to us; the food was really good. We walked back to the pier to the best spot to catch a glimpse of the sunset. It was fantastic, but would have been better if there were not as many clouds. There were many street performers and we stuck around to watch one guy who was a gymnast. This guy was jumping and flipping and doing all sorts of things. He needed help with his act and was looking for someone strong, so naturally he picked me out of the crowd. He made me do 15 regular pushups and then he proceeded to one-up me by doing 20 pushups with his only contact with the ground were his two hands (his feet were in the air and he was doing vertical pushups). He then proceeded to make fun of me and the fact that I am from Canada. For his final act, he had a second person straddle a bicycle and duck her head and he had me hold a hula hoop (which was not much bigger than his body) on the second persons back. This guy then took a running start and jumped through the hula hoop that I was holding! It was very impressive. It felt as though he was running full speed at me and I wasn’t able to move an inch. Amazingly he didn’t even graze the hoop and cleared the obstacle no problem.

We bought a home made key lime pie; key limes and key lime pie is famous from originating in Key West. We had some for desert after dinner and then finished the rest of it off for breakfast. It was delicious – tasted fresh and had the same texture as cheesecake.