Miami, USA

Having finished our Latin America leg of the trip we finally made it to the USA. Having a free stop on our round-the-world ticket, the USA served as te most logical stop eroute from South America to the UK/Europe. Due to minor time and financial constraints, we would only be traversing the east coast from south to north. First up was Miami - the major gateway between Latin America and USA where over 70% of the population speak Spanish.

When we booked our itinerary some months ago, it was without hesitation or research - quite simply Miami is a major attraction on the east coast. What we didn't account for was the Memorial Day weekend. Over the weekend, South Beach is transformed from the typical Miami to accomodate urban music fans from across the country (world?). Essentially it's the rap/hip hop/RnB version of WMC. Not really our thing but still entertaining.

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Despite this, we did manage to find some electronic music on the Saturday night at the downtown superclub Space, and on the Sunday evening at the famous Nikki Beach club.

More important to us was to try and take in the more typical sites of Miami's over the top indulgence - buildings, cars, motorbikes, yachts. It had no limits. On our final day we booked in for a three part tour (which turned out to be two - below) taking us to the Everglades, a bus tour of the city, and finally a boat tour around Biscayne Bay. The houses abutting the bay are pretty much the cream of the crop real estate of Miami with private boat slips being standard issue from the backyard. Next level wealth.

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So what happened with our tour? We booked it through a third party booking agency called Viator. They in turn organise a local operator to run the tour - in this instance Infinity Tours. Firstly they refused to undertake the hotel pickup service they offered because Collins Ave was 'too busy', ven at 7.30am. Secondly, after lunch we were to meet at the pickup point at 2.30pm for the city tour component. There was no bus to be seen. Finally at 4.30pm the bus returned for the boat tour. When we asked for an explaination, we were basically told the tour component was over booked. To avoid confrontation, they simply left without informing us. Poor form. To continue my name-and-shame of dodgy tour operators, at all costs avoid Infinity Tours.