As Félix Grande’s poem suggests, “where you were happy once you should never return.” And where you have not been happy, you will take care not to come back soon, I add. This is precisely what happened to me with Miami. My first contact with the city’s most famous city in Florida was not at all memorable, and, with a stroke, it was crossed off my travel agenda for years. The poet, National Poetry Prize winner in 1978, alluded to the ravages of time and the loss of illusion, but he hadn’t counted on the fact that places, unlike memories, can offer a second opportunity. The great Floridian metropolis has given me exactly that.
Aquel destino previsible que creí conocer –en los viajes de menos de tres días no deberíamos aplicar nunca este verbo– ha resultado tener mucha personalidad. Move forward into the future without losing its roots, with as many facets as there are types of travelers and the capacity to meet the expectations of each one of them.
For beach lovers
Although Miami’s history is linked to the legend that narrates how the Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León arrived at Vizcaya Bay, the tropical lagoon where the Miami River empties, in search of the source of the eternal youth spoken of by Native Americans, the truth is that to find the origin of Miami Beach you don’t need to go back to the era of conquest. Just as the city’s founding in 1896 was made possible thanks to the vision of Julia Tuttle, who saw potential in a swampy area and pressed until connecting the area thanks to the railroad and attracting investors, the barrier island owed its transformation to the stubbornness of men like John Collins and Carl Fisher, who crossed the swamps chasing a promise among coconut trees.
Tal como desvela Charles Kropke –CEO de Dragonfly Expeditions y coautor del libro South Beach: Stories of a Renaissance– en sus rutas interpretativas sobre la génesis de este pedazo de costa miamense, el idilio comenzó a finales del siglo XIX, cuando un grupo de inversores compró decenas de miles de cocos en Trinidad para plantarlos en aquella franja de arena y manglares. Sin embargo, el proyecto naufragó cuando descubrieron que las ratas y los conejos se dedicaban a devorarlos por las noches.
