Carefree in Key West

The next day, we were up and doing rather early to start our long drive to Southern Florida and into the Florida Keys. The “Keys” is the collective name given to the string of islands that juts out into the Gulf of Mexico from the southernmost tip of Florida. Once coral reefs that came up to the surface through volcanic activity, they now peek out above the waters forming a chain. The drive from the first Key (Key Largo) to the last one (Key West) takes about two hours, so one ought to reserve a great deal of time to truly explore the Keys.
You cannot fail but be enchanted by this part of the state. The water is crystalline and an incredibly aquamarine blue as far as the eye can see. Gentle waves lap the shores of each island. If you have a clear day under cloudless skies, you will feel as if you are driving out deep into the ocean. The drive itself is so marvelous that I understood the truth of the old adage—“It is not just the destination but the journey that makes travel so fulfilling”. That was how psychologically satisfied I felt that morning. I could have driven like that forever and never have become fatigued.

It is difficult to tell when one Key ends and the next begins. Some are so miniscule that they do not even feature on a map. Others are far more substantial and deserve visits all their own—Islamorada (pronounced “Eye-la-mo-ra-da”) is a great base for scuba diving in the Florida Coral Reef and is the “fishing capital of the world”. Marathon is equally important. We refrained from stopping anywhere, however, enjoying the passing landscape as it flew by our windows. The streets were dotted with shops and restaurants doing rather sleepy business on that beautiful March morning. Once in the Middle Keys, we drove over Seven Mile Bridge and saw the older railway bridge of Henry Flagler (now lying in disuse) on our left. Anglers dotted the pedestrian walks along the bridges, sharing space companionably and unbelievably with an amazing variety of bird life such a giant pelicans, colorful storks, black cormorants, snow white egrets and gulls in every size, shape and form. Bird droppings encrusted the bridges and telephone lines throughout our journey, the antics of their creators making any distraction impossible.

 

 

 

 

 

It was past noon by the time we arrived at Key West and found ourselves starving for a meal. It seemed only logical that we would go out in search of Margaritaville Café (right) , only the most famous restaurant on the island, having been opened by Key West pop icon Jimmy Buffet who put the little hamlet on the international music map. “Wasting away again in Margaritaville/Searching for my last shaker of salt/ Some people claim that there’s a woman to blame/But I  know, its nobody’s fault”.

The cafe seems deceptively little from the outside. Inside, it is cavernous and suitably dim. Packed to capacity on that Spring Break weekend with collegians out bogeying, we waited a while before ordering a salted frozen margarita (duh?) and the culinary specialties of the island—conch fritters and conch chowder. Both were delicious indeed and made a very tasty meal as Jimmy Buffet hits played in the background.
Outside, we passed by Sloppy Joe’s Bar, favorite hangout of novelist Ernest Hemingway who made Key West his home for many years. It too was buzzing with party animals inside. The stores selling T-shirts with the funniest visuals and sayings on them, Caribbean-styled churches that glistened white in the strong sun, gingerbread houses in the distinctive plantation style of the South with wide upper and lower level porches and gardens filled with tropical foliage and flowers drew our attention everywhere. Nibblin’ on sponge cake,/Watchin’ the sun bake;/All of those tourists covered with oil./Strummin’ my six string on my front porch swing./Smell those shrimp/They’re beginnin’ to boil. The lyrics of Buffet’s song echoed repeatedly in my mind as I passed those spacious porches and those swiftly-tanning tourists. Key West is an attitude, sang Buffet, and he was not mistaken. You get the feeling that you have left the United States behind and entered the laid-back world of the Caribbean Islands in these parts.

 

 

 

 

(Outside Hemingway’s house–left–and a view of his Bedroom with one of his six-toed paws lounging on it)

 

 

 

 

(Hemingway’s Study and The Notorious Cat Fountain in his garden)

With the sun growing warm on our backs, we hastened off to Whitehead Street to see Hemingway House, a lovely green and lemon double storied plantation style center hall colonial home set in the lushest gardens. Hemingway lived in this home for nine of the most productive years of his life while married to his second wife Pauline Pfeiffer and raising his two sons, Christopher and Patrick. There, ensconced in a world of tropical greenery and cats, scores of them– more than fifty of them–he wrote about 700 words by mid-morning, then left for a bout of deep-sea fishing with his friend Gregorio Fuentes who became the character Santiago in his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Old Man and The Sea. Back in the late evening, he returned from the waves and walked to Sloppy Joe’s for his daily tipple—not a bad life by any stretch of the imagination!  This routine seemed to work rather successfully, until he went off on his next voyage to somewhere exotic, caught the eye of another enticing lady and entered, like Picasso, into another passionate and artistically productive relationship and phase of his life.

A very enthusiastic guide, a Hemingway look-a-like–complete with goatee beard and mariner’s hat–took us around the home, introducing us to the personal minutea of Hemingway’s life. We saw the master bedroom on which one of the cats, a ginger tabby called Archie (short for Archibald McLeish) sprawled contentedly. The bed’s headboard was custom-made of beautifully carved ebony brought back from the novelist’s travels in Africa. We were able to visit his study, cut off by the rest of the house in another building but connected to it in his own lifetime, by a catwalk. His desk, cigar-maker’s chair and bookcases proclaimed a fairly Spartan lifestyle. The typewriter was somewhat misleading as Hemingway was notorious for having penned all his novels in long hand. Still, peering into his study gave us an evocative glimpse into a life lived with zest and a passionate vigor. “Papa” Hemingway has not become an iconic figure in American literature for nothing. His hard swearing, hard drinking, hard womanizing ways, his big game hunting in Africa, his deep sea fishing in Cuba, his bar hopping in Paris, his war wounds received while a foreign correspondent in Italy during World War II and the Spanish Civil War, have all contributed enormously to his aura and all of this was evident on our tour. Indeed, the place seems to emanate a spirit of adventure that was purely thrilling and I loved every inch of it. At the beautiful Olympic sized pool, created for him by Pauline as a surprise, we saw the penny, now encased in concrete that he tossed at her when he discovered that building the pool had cost $20,000 saying, in disgust, “Well, he (the builder) might as well take the last penny I’ve got!” We saw also the famous Cat Fountain salvaged by “Sloppy” Joe Russel from what were once urinals in an old Key West theater. Hemingway requested that he be given one of them, then turned it into a drinking trough for his cats, much to Pauline’s disgust. Discovering that he could not be persuaded to get rid of it, she had it embellished with Spanish ceramic tiles. Funnily enough, not a single one of the cats ever drinks from it!

We could not leave Key West without taking the mandatory pictures at the garishly-painted concrete pillar that marks “The Southernmost Point of the Continental United States”. Lapped by ferocious waves, the area is usually mobbed by visitors, eager to get their pictures taken at the unusual landmark. We also took our pictures by the road signpost marking Zero Mile on Route 1 which runs south to north all along the US East Coast right past our home in Connecticut. Then, making our way back to the car park at Mallory Square where gigantic papier mache figures replicating a scene from one of August Renoir’s most famous paintings, stood outside the Museum of Fine Art by the water’s edge where grand cruise ships dock daily.

On our way back, we hopped off at Key Largo to have dinner at The Fish House Restaurant that’s serves the best seafood in the Keys. Between the stuffed shrimp and the stuffed mushrooms, we had a hearty meal, downed with occasional sips of a Rum Runner, a famous Southern Floridian cocktail that is well known in these parts. Needless to say, we couldn’t leave the Keys without partaking of its most famous dessert—Key Lime Pie it was for us, tangy-sweet and amazingly delicious.

Bon Voyage!