Miami beach, USA

The Beach of All Vanities


sunny beach
Bathers spread a towel next to one of Miami Beach's lush lifeguard huts.
Muscles
Lazar Novovic and Dusan Djolevic, mentors of the street work out movement Bar Brothers and Hannibal for King, one of its inspirations, show off their physical shape at Lumus Park.
Art Deco Photo
Visitors to Miami Beach can't resist the charm of an Art Deco-era automobile in which the buildings on Ocean Drive where it is parked were erected.
by land
Band of terns on the vast sands of Miami Beach.
VIP homes
One of the many multi-million dollar mansions housed in the Miami Bay Marine Refuge.
plastic seduction
Mannequin at the entrance of a store at the base of the Congress Hotel
Hannibal Flag
Hannibal the King carries out a "flag", an exuberant movement that is very difficult to execute.
Neon hour
Lighting in Ocean Drive's hotels and bars is highlighted by the slow dusk.
Few coastlines concentrate, at the same time, so much heat and displays of fame, wealth and glory. Located in the far southeast of the USA, Miami Beach is accessed by six bridges that connect it to the rest of Florida. It is manifestly meager for the number of souls who desire it.

It's only been twenty minutes since the “Island Queen” sailed from the Bay of Miami docks.

We pass under the big overpass on Port Boulevard. A line of gray skyscrapers sets on our backs against the blue sky almost clear of fog or clouds. THE

Land of Opportunity's flag is still attached to the stern of the vessel, but from the angle we see it flutters with its stars & stripes on an even higher plane.

We did not take long to navigate the first personal expressions of success achieved in the US fashion. “To your right is anchored Mr. Mark Cuban's fabulous yacht, which everyone should know from the “Lago dos Tubarões” program.

Thereafter, as we approach the west coast of Miami Beach, the narrator on duty does little more than announce other ships and mansions.

They are all owned by celebrities and millionaires, Americans but not only, some less exposed than others.

Miami's Countless Billion Mansions

With some ridiculous meters of vegetation separating them, the Instagram inventor's house, Ricky Martin's, followed. A mansion used by Shakira and Usher in filming of videoclips and, accordingly, one of the houses of the rapper Puff Daddy. “This is by Tomas Cramer, a German architect.” adds the narrator. “He complained that Miami was too hot.

Installed air conditioning throughout the interior. Not satisfied, he also installed a system out that cost nearly $100.000. Next is Phillip Frost's summer home, Mr. Viagra, or Mr. Blue, as he is better known. Each of the 32 palm trees you see in that garden came from Africa at a unit cost of $10.000.

The mansion only costs 60 million dollars.” The second-largest home in the area was owned by Elisabeth Taylor and Eddie Fischer, one of her many husbands. In the garden is a black rabbit given by Michael Jackson. Others, smaller, belonged to Sylvester Stallone, to David Beckam, to the Brazilian Xuxa.

Singer Gloria Estefan's included a four million dollar recording studio. On Fisher Island, almost touching the big island of Miami Beach and accessible only by boat and helicopter, there were mansions of Tom Cruise, Jennifer Lopez, Sophia Loren, Boris Becker, so he continued to present the hostess at the microphone while the passengers, dazzled, turned now to port, now to starboard.

Miami reveals this and more. Much more, of course, than the DNA and laboratory intrigue of “Dexter” and, much earlier, from “Miami Vice” where excerpts from countless episodes were filmed in those same waters and on the docks we had before us.

Mansion, Miami beach, beach, Florida, United States,

One of the many multi-million dollar mansions housed in the Miami Bay Marine Refuge.

Obsession with Fitness at Lummus Park

It is in Miami Beach, in particular, that all the symptoms of heightened prosperity and fame or yearning to reach them wash over. We return to the dock and disembark.

Afterwards, we drive via the A1A road and bridge to the opposite coast of the big island and feel its vibrations with the soft sun of the fake local winter massaging our increasingly tanned faces.

Countless young people – others not so much – obsessed with their physical shape and appearance follow each other on the irregular walk that zigzags between the coconut trees of Lummus Park and follows the Caribbean Sea.

They do it on the run, on roller skates or on a bicycle, on advanced skateboards or towed by stray dogs.

In a stronghold of beauty and class like this privileged strip of Florida, no one wants to be weak.

Mannequin, Miami beach, beach, Florida, United States,

Mannequin at the entrance of a store at the base of the Congress Hotel

If the weather does not even invite you to stay at home, the sculptural and golden bodies of the stars serve as an unquestionable motivation for any exercise.

We stop in front of a kind of outdoor gym that groups bars of different heights, walls, tires and some other mobile auxiliary equipment.

Dedicated bodybuilders from different groups attend it in an unstable relationship, far from harmony.

We approach and engage them in conversation, when their cycle of repetitions and rest allows. Once some initial mistrust was overcome and at your pace, we realized the dynamics of your relationship.

Lazar Novovic and Dusan Djolevic were studying in the US when they met through a friend.

The Calisthenic Movement of the Bar Brothers and Hannibal the King

supporters of street workout, focused on transforming their lives, found in a motivational video of Hannibal for King, a New York street bodybuilder idolized in the US and all over the world, a strong inspiration to create the Bar Brothers, their own good movement -being and determination in life today, internationally and heavily online.

Bar Brothers, Miami beach, beach, Florida, United States,

Lazar Novovic and Dusan Djolevic, mentors of the street work out movement Bar Brothers and Hannibal for King, one of its inspirations, show off their physical shape at Lumus Park.

We are lucky to find the three of them together.

Lazar and Dusan are busy filming a video with Hannibal and, at the same time, doing their own exercises. It is Hannibal who we photograph the most and who dedicates most of his time to us. “My story is curious: I broke my hands very seriously.

The doctors told me that I would never be able to use them properly again. I ignored them and followed an alternative treatment that included a series of calisthenics exercises. At one point, I found myself addicted to these exercises and highly motivated by progress.

Hannibal's Intense and Exercised Life

I took the exercises to the extreme, shaped my entire body and started creating motivational videos to help other people reach difficult goals. Today, I travel the world showing what I do and inspiring other athletes. But don't think it's easy. I have two wives, three daughters and only one son.

When I'm in New York I live surrounded by women. To get away with it, I go out with my son, but even so, I'm always hearing accusations for living with other fit women…”

We asked Hannibal the King for one last photo. Hannibal shows us an extreme position known as a flag, with his body stretched out horizontally using one of the sidebars as an axis.

Hannibal the King, Miami beach, beach, Florida, United States,

Hannibal the King carries out a “flag”, an exuberant movement that is very difficult to execute.

Afterwards, we said goodbye to him and the group, wondering if it wouldn't be a good idea to better prepare ourselves for our travels, to follow at least part of his techniques and teachings.

The Long Caribbean Beach of Miami Beach

The morning comes to an end. The beach directly opposite is made up and lifeguards are replaced at the end of the first shift of the day.

They ensure the continuity of your Bay Watch from the top of the typical lifeguard huts of these places, so exuberant and in a good mood that foreign bathers surround them one after the other with mobile phones at the ready and determined to photograph themselves with them as a souvenir.

Bay Watch cabin, Miami beach, beach, Florida, United States,

Bathers spread a towel next to one of Miami Beach's lush lifeguard huts.

We are already well out of the cyclone season and not even the wind that is felt affects the gentleness in which the Caribbean Sea unfolds.

All the huts have purple flags hoisted, which intrigues us.

We asked a bathroom on the porch of the cabin the meaning of the color. He answers us with a haughtiness and dryness that we are used to in those who have a place of authority in the USA, however insignificant it may be: “Jellyfish, we detected a few jellyfish in the water”.

We contemplate the nearby sea dotted with shapes. The fact that this is a familiar and, as we wanted to believe, small hassle does not deter us from a well-deserved dive. As we splash through the water, advertising zeppelins fly over us.

Offshore, a barge navigates that displays advertisements on a panel.

We thought we knew the bathing universe in depth. We should have predicted that on a beach in the US, something new would appear.

Royal terns, Miami beach, beach, Florida, United States,

Band of terns on the vast sands of Miami Beach.

Ocean Drive and Surrounding Area, Miami Beach Art Deco

But if Miami Beach innovates, it does so with an entrepreneurial respect for its historic heritage. We return to the interior of the island in the late afternoon.

We were housed in The Hall, a boutique hotel that had adapted one of Miami Beach's 1200 Art Deco structures (the largest concentration in the world), most built between 1923 and 1943.

Around, several others stood out for the architecture of the time.

In particular, Park Central, between 6th and 7th street, a frequent stop for classic Hollywood stars: Clark Gable, Rita Hayworth, Carole Lombard and the like, characters that match the golden age of some colorful jalopy cars parked there under a Vallet Parking system.

Art Deco, Miami beach, beach, Florida, United States,

Visitors to Miami Beach can't resist the charm of an Art Deco-era automobile in which the buildings on Ocean Drive where it is parked were erected.

In our view, one of the most opportunistic and irritating commercial pests in the US

With sunset setting in and bathers returning from the sand to the realm of concrete and asphalt, we find ourselves attracted by the call of Ocean Drive.

The neons of the Boulevard, Colony and Starlite hotels soon devour the daytime pastel tones of the buildings and seize the color of that glamorous marginal avenue.

Thus, they signal the reopening of the crazy nightlife of the neighbourhood.

Miami beach, beach, Florida, United States, Ocean Drive

Lighting in Ocean Drive's hotels and bars is highlighted by the slow dusk.

Soon, bars like Churchill's Pub – run by the UK – attract a heterogeneous horde of recycled punks, curious hipsters and metalheads or whatever kind of fans of the bands that play live there without any coherence of gender or notoriety.

Something similar happens at the Liv, despite being housed inside the Fontainebleu hotel and, as such, far more exclusive than Churchill's or Nikki Beach, this one, based in several cabins and equipped with bars tiki on the sand of SoBe Beach, South Beach of Miami Beach.

At that time, the most visible excitement is still that of a growing line of island visitors who want to photograph themselves in front of the famous Miami Beach clock/thermometer on the threshold of Lumus Park.

Key West, USA

The Tropical Wild West of the USA

We've come to the end of the Overseas Highway and the ultimate stronghold of propagandism Florida Keys. The continental United States here they surrender to a dazzling turquoise emerald marine vastness. And to a southern reverie fueled by a kind of Caribbean spell.
Florida Keys, USA

The Caribbean Stepping Stone of the USA

Os United States continental islands seem to close to the south in its capricious peninsula of Florida. Don't stop there. More than a hundred islands of coral, sand and mangroves form an eccentric tropical expanse that has long seduced American vacationers.
Miami, USA

A Masterpiece of Urban Rehabilitation

At the turn of the 25st century, the Wynwood neighbourhood remained filled with abandoned factories and warehouses and graffiti. Tony Goldman, a shrewd real estate investor, bought more than XNUMX properties and founded a mural park. Much more than honoring graffiti there, Goldman founded the Wynwood Arts District, the great bastion of creativity in Miami.
Little Havana, USA

Little Havana of the Nonconformists

Over the decades and until today, thousands of Cubans have crossed the Florida Straits in search of the land of freedom and opportunity. With the US a mere 145 km away, many have gone no further. His Little Havana in Miami is today the most emblematic neighborhood of the Cuban diaspora.
Key West, United States

Hemingway's Caribbean Playground

Effusive as ever, Ernest Hemingway called Key West "the best place I've ever been...". In the tropical depths of the contiguous US, he found evasion and crazy, drunken fun. And the inspiration to write with intensity to match.
Waikiki, OahuHawaii

The Japanese Invasion of Hawaii

Decades after the attack on Pearl Harbor and from the capitulation in World War II, the Japanese returned to Hawaii armed with millions of dollars. Waikiki, his favorite target, insists on surrendering.
Maho Beach, Sint Maarten

The Jet-powered Caribbean Beach

At first glance, Princess Juliana International Airport appears to be just another one in the vast Caribbean. Successive landings skimming Maho beach that precedes its runway, jet take-offs that distort the faces of bathers and project them into the sea, make it a special case.
Phi Phi Islands, Thailand

Back to Danny Boyle's The Beach

It's been 15 years since the debut of the backpacker classic based on the novel by Alex Garland. The film popularized the places where it was shot. Shortly thereafter, the XNUMX tsunami literally washed some away off the map. Today, their controversial fame remains intact.
Boracay, Philippines

The Philippine Beach of All Dreams

It was revealed by Western backpackers and the film crew of “Thus Heroes are Born”. Hundreds of resorts and thousands of eastern vacationers followed, whiter than the chalky sand.
Lion, Elephants, PN Hwange, Zimbabwe
Safari
PN Hwange, Zimbabwe

The Legacy of the Late Cecil Lion

On July 1, 2015, Walter Palmer, a dentist and trophy hunter from Minnesota killed Cecil, Zimbabwe's most famous lion. The slaughter generated a viral wave of outrage. As we saw in PN Hwange, nearly two years later, Cecil's descendants thrive.
Young people walk the main street in Chame, Nepal
Annapurna (circuit)
Annapurna Circuit: 1th - Pokhara a ChameNepal

Finally, on the way

After several days of preparation in Pokhara, we left towards the Himalayas. The walking route only starts in Chame, at 2670 meters of altitude, with the snowy peaks of the Annapurna mountain range already in sight. Until then, we complete a painful but necessary road preamble to its subtropical base.
Luderitz, Namibia
Architecture & Design
Lüderitz, Namibia

Wilkommen in Africa

Chancellor Bismarck has always disdained overseas possessions. Against his will and all odds, in the middle of the Race for Africa, merchant Adolf Lüderitz forced Germany to take over an inhospitable corner of the continent. The homonymous city prospered and preserves one of the most eccentric heritages of the Germanic empire.
Adventure
Volcanoes

Mountains of Fire

More or less prominent ruptures in the earth's crust, volcanoes can prove to be as exuberant as they are capricious. Some of its eruptions are gentle, others prove annihilating.
self-flagellation, passion of christ, philippines
Ceremonies and Festivities
Marinduque, Philippines

The Philippine Passion of Christ

No nation around is Catholic but many Filipinos are not intimidated. In Holy Week, they surrender to the belief inherited from the Spanish colonists. Self-flagellation becomes a bloody test of faith
Hiroshima, city surrendered to peace, Japan
Cities
Hiroshima, Japan

Hiroshima: a City Yielded to Peace

On August 6, 1945, Hiroshima succumbed to the explosion of the first atomic bomb used in war. 70 years later, the city fights for the memory of the tragedy and for nuclear weapons to be eradicated by 2020.
Meal
World Food

Gastronomy Without Borders or Prejudice

Each people, their recipes and delicacies. In certain cases, the same ones that delight entire nations repel many others. For those who travel the world, the most important ingredient is a very open mind.
Jingkieng Wahsurah, Nongblai Village Roots Bridge, Meghalaya, India
Culture
Meghalaya, India

The Bridges of the Peoples that Create Roots

The unpredictability of rivers in the wettest region on Earth never deterred the Khasi and the Jaintia. Faced with the abundance of trees elastic fig tree in their valleys, these ethnic groups got used to molding their branches and strains. From their time-lost tradition, they have bequeathed hundreds of dazzling root bridges to future generations.
Spectator, Melbourne Cricket Ground-Rules footbal, Melbourne, Australia
Sport
Melbourne, Australia

The Football the Australians Rule

Although played since 1841, Australian Football has only conquered part of the big island. Internationalization has never gone beyond paper, held back by competition from rugby and classical football.
End of the day at the Teesta river dam lake in Gajoldoba, India
Traveling
Dooars India

At the Gates of the Himalayas

We arrived at the northern threshold of West Bengal. The subcontinent gives way to a vast alluvial plain filled with tea plantations, jungle, rivers that the monsoon overflows over endless rice fields and villages bursting at the seams. On the verge of the greatest of the mountain ranges and the mountainous kingdom of Bhutan, for obvious British colonial influence, India treats this stunning region by Dooars.
Train Fianarantsoa to Manakara, Malagasy TGV, locomotive
Ethnic
Fianarantsoa-Manakara, Madagascar

On board the Malagasy TGV

We depart Fianarantsoa at 7a.m. It wasn't until 3am the following morning that we completed the 170km to Manakara. The natives call this almost secular train Train Great Vibrations. During the long journey, we felt, very strongly, those of the heart of Madagascar.
Sunset, Avenue of Baobabs, Madagascar
Got2Globe Photo Portfolio

days like so many others

Kirkjubour, Streymoy, Faroe Islands
History
Kirkjubour, Streymoy, Faroe Islands

Where the Faroese Christianity Washed Ashore

A mere year into the first millennium, a Viking missionary named Sigmundur Brestisson brought the Christian faith to the Faroe Islands. Kirkjubour became the shelter and episcopal seat of the new religion.
Buffaloes, Marajo Island, Brazil, Soure police buffaloes
Islands
Marajó Island, Brazil

The Buffalo Island

A vessel that transported buffaloes from the India it will have sunk at the mouth of the Amazon River. Today, the island of Marajó that hosted them has one of the largest herds in the world and Brazil is no longer without these bovine animals.
Correspondence verification
Winter White
Rovaniemi, Finland

From the Finnish Lapland to the Arctic. A Visit to the Land of Santa

Fed up with waiting for the bearded old man to descend down the chimney, we reverse the story. We took advantage of a trip to Finnish Lapland and passed through its furtive home.
shadow vs light
Literature
Kyoto, Japan

The Kyoto Temple Reborn from the Ashes

The Golden Pavilion has been spared destruction several times throughout history, including that of US-dropped bombs, but it did not withstand the mental disturbance of Hayashi Yoken. When we admired him, he looked like never before.
very coarse salt
Nature
Salta and Jujuy, Argentina

Through the Highlands of Deep Argentina

A tour through the provinces of Salta and Jujuy takes us to discover a country with no sign of the pampas. Vanished in the Andean vastness, these ends of the Northwest of Argentina have also been lost in time.
Mother Armenia Statue, Yerevan, Armenia
Autumn
Yerevan, Armenia

A Capital between East and West

Heiress of the Soviet civilization, aligned with the great Russia, Armenia allows itself to be seduced by the most democratic and sophisticated ways of Western Europe. In recent times, the two worlds have collided in the streets of your capital. From popular and political dispute, Yerevan will dictate the new course of the nation.
Totem, Sitka, Alaska Travel Once Russia
Natural Parks
sitka, Alaska

Sitka: Journey through a once Russian Alaska

In 1867, Tsar Alexander II had to sell Russian Alaska to the United States. In the small town of Sitka, we find the Russian legacy but also the Tlingit natives who fought them.
Serengeti, Great Savannah Migration, Tanzania, wildebeest on river
UNESCO World Heritage
Serengeti NP, Tanzania

The Great Migration of the Endless Savanna

In these prairies that the Masai people say syringet (run forever), millions of wildebeests and other herbivores chase the rains. For predators, their arrival and that of the monsoon are the same salvation.
Heroes Acre Monument, Zimbabwe
Characters
Harare, Zimbabwewe

The Last Rales of Surreal Mugabué

In 2015, Zimbabwe's first lady Grace Mugabe said the 91-year-old president would rule until the age of 100 in a special wheelchair. Shortly thereafter, it began to insinuate itself into his succession. But in recent days, the generals have finally precipitated the removal of Robert Mugabe, who has replaced him with former Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa.
Baie d'Oro, Île des Pins, New Caledonia
Beaches
Île-des-Pins, New Caledonia

The Island that Leaned against Paradise

In 1964, Katsura Morimura delighted the Japan with a turquoise novel set in Ouvéa. But the neighboring Île-des-Pins has taken over the title "The Nearest Island to Paradise" and thrills its visitors.
Miyajima Island, Shinto and Buddhism, Japan, Gateway to a Holy Island
Religion
Miyajima, Japan

Shintoism and Buddhism with the Tide

Visitors to the Tori of Itsukushima admire one of the three most revered scenery in Japan. On the island of Miyajima, Japanese religiosity blends with Nature and is renewed with the flow of the Seto Inland Sea.
Chepe Express, Chihuahua Al Pacifico Railway
On Rails
Creel to Los Mochis, Mexico

The Barrancas del Cobre & the CHEPE Iron Horse

The Sierra Madre Occidental's relief turned the dream into a construction nightmare that lasted six decades. In 1961, at last, the prodigious Chihuahua al Pacifico Railroad was opened. Its 643km cross some of the most dramatic scenery in Mexico.
aggie gray, Samoa, South Pacific, Marlon Brando Fale
Society
Apia, Western Samoa

The Host of the South Pacific

She sold burguês to GI's in World War II and opened a hotel that hosted Marlon Brando and Gary Cooper. Aggie Gray passed away in 2. Her legacy lives on in the South Pacific.
Casario, uptown, Fianarantsoa, ​​Madagascar
Daily life
Fianarantsoa, Madagascar

The Malagasy City of Good Education

Fianarantsoa was founded in 1831 by Ranavalona Iª, a queen of the then predominant Merina ethnic group. Ranavalona Iª was seen by European contemporaries as isolationist, tyrant and cruel. The monarch's reputation aside, when we enter it, its old southern capital remains as the academic, intellectual and religious center of Madagascar.
Newborn turtle, PN Tortuguero, Costa Rica
Wildlife
PN Tortuguero, Costa Rica

A Night at the Nursery of Tortuguero

The name of the Tortuguero region has an obvious and ancient reason. Turtles from the Atlantic and the Caribbean Sea have long flocked to the black sand beaches of its narrow coastline to spawn. On one of the nights we spent in Tortuguero we watched their frenzied births.
Bungee jumping, Queenstown, New Zealand
Scenic Flights
Queenstown, New Zealand

Queenstown, the Queen of Extreme Sports

In the century. XVIII, the Kiwi government proclaimed a mining village on the South Island "fit for a queen".Today's extreme scenery and activities reinforce the majestic status of ever-challenging Queenstown.
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