“Are the little girls still there?” Timofei asked as soon as he woke up. After traveling for a week, our boys have missed other children. But the very close quarters of Boyd’s campground in Key West were very indusive for making connections. Five yards away from us was a very nice family with two girls. One was eight and her sister was five. Timofei was running after the older one and Yelisei was following the younger one. They were running in circles and squealing like pigs all evening and all morning. That alone made up for all inconvenience of close neighbors and high price. The girls’ family had spent 2 1/2 years in Germany, so the father was very eager to show off his German that he learned. Everybody had fun after all.
I never noticed it before but apparently the chicken are wild in Key West. Those roosters that woke us up that morning were calling from all around us. So I was thinking, it is strange how popular it is to keep chicken around here. It turned out no one owns those chicken! They roam the streets on their own! We saw them all over Key West, even little chicks. I was so curious about this that I asked a cashier at a gas station about it. She said that she heard that they used to be fighting cocks which then went wild.
Since our neighbors were leaving in the morning and they were the only nice thing there, Renzo was looking for just about any other spot for the next night. At midnight he managed to find and book one spot for one night in Long Key State Park. Earlier that day I made a reservation for Sunday night at Bahia Honda State Park. It looked like our Easter weekend was not a complete disaster after all.
Following recommendation of our nice neighbors for the nicest beach we went to Higgs Beach in Key West for an afternoon of beach time.
I can not say that Key West has the world’s nicest beaches but there was sand, a bathroom and water to swim in, though it was on the cold side. That is all you need for our kids to be happy.
We set up our chairs under a tree next to a picnic table. At that picnic table sat an older woman. She was from some Muslim country but I could not place it from which one. Her dress had a blue under dress with a beautiful fine batik print and black and brown embroidered robe like over dress. She had a beautiful dark face with black brows that almost met. She was reading something that looked like a prayer book. It tuned out that this lady was from Uzbekistan and spoke perfect Russian. She was so happy to speak to us. She did not speak English and Russian was the only foreign language that she knew. She was in Key West for two months visiting her son. But he works as well as her Uzbekistan girlfriends.
We spoke a bit and I mentioned how much I liked this certain kind of cheese that they have in her country. She opened her bag and pulled out a bag with that cheese! She gave me some -and there I was, eating an Uzbekistan delicacy on Higgs Beach in Key West, speaking Russian to a woman in a head scarf!!
Just then I saw a family with two children of Timofei’s age walking onto the beach. I thought that maybe Timofei can play with those kids. Then the father of that family turns to me and says: Ksenia? And then I recognized them. I know them from New York!!!! And they are Russian!
Though I speak English I still prefer Russian company. We all spent a fantastic afternoon on the beach. Rashid, the husband of the Russian family, was the first one in the water. It was cold to enter but once you where in it was very nice. Even our chicken children went in, probably being impressed by Rashid’s twins.
The Uzbekistan woman was afraid to go into the water by herself since she could not swim and the bottom was rocky and she was afraid to fall. I went with her hand in hand into the water. She was wearing some kind of purple pajama and her head scarf was fully covering her neck. As Renzo pointed out later, we were quite a spectacle for the entire beach. I guess they have never seen a Muslim woman holding hands with white chick with pink hair enter the cold waters of the Atlantic ocean. I have to say: me neither.
Unfortunately, we had to leave this Russian speaking paradise and go find something to eat. We ignored the recommended Uzbek restaurant that just opened in Key West as well as the seaport fish places. We felt like Cuban food. So we whipped out our iPhone and opened good old Yelp. First try was a miss – it turned out to be a window deli next to coin laundry. We wanted authentic but not that pedestrian. But the second hit was a winner.
Habana 1 it was called. The walls were covered with mostly portrait paintings. Timofei said that he did not like those because the people all had long necks. I liked them because almost all people on those paintings had long necks. We ordered steak, a tropical medley and grilled fish. Everything came with the most beautiful orange colored rice and black beans.
Everything was exceptionally good especially the rice and beans. Usually I am not a big fan of rice and beans but this one was a piece of art! The rice had a hint of saffron taste and the beans had a very delicate blend of spice and were firm in broth with bay leaf and something else that I could not tell what it was. We cleaned up all the plates!
What a day!
Then we were off to Long Key State Park. This park had 54 campsites all waterfront and all very big with trees in between. After That private campground in Key West, it felt like coming back to paradise. This is the only campground that I have seen that had no bad sites. Even as we were next to the bathroom, it had so much space it was very nice. Usually we pick the furthest spot from the bathroom to avoid high traffic and the light that shines all night.
Finally, we had a good night’s sleep again. But only to be ruined in the morning by an Easter morning gone bad…
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