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Hemingway Adventure
Key West, Florida (seventh day)
Acrobats entertain at Mallory Square dockside where crowds gather every evening for ritual observation of the southernmost sunset in the USA. Hemingway finally sailed away from here in 1939, to spend most of the rest of his life in Cuba, ninety miles away.
We’re about to leave the sauna-like climate here at the end of America. Sixty-six summers ago Hemingway too was planning to escape the sub-tropical summer.Over a farewell margarita or three made for me by Joan, the barwoman at La Concha, I reflect that what motivated Hemingway to travel, apart from natural curiosity, was a mixture of boredom and boastfulness. Having sought new places and new experiences, he used all his old reporter’s wiles to make it seem that he was the first to discover them. So, whether it was ambulance-driving in World War One, or marlin-fishing, or bull-running at Pamplona, Ernest Hemingway had the canny knack of being the first to tell the world about it.
In the sticky heat of July 1933 he was putting final touches to what was to be another world exclusive. And, for him, a new continent.
Choose another day from Hemingway Adventure
PALIN'S GUIDES
- Series: Hemingway Adventure
- Chapter: Key West, Florida (seventh day)
- Country/sea: USA
- Place: Key West, Florida
- Book page no: 156
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RELATED LINKS
- USA
- Day 63
- Around the World in 80 Days
- Introduction
- Full Circle
- Day 64
- Around the World in 80 Days
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