MIAMI SPICE

BEN BORLAND takes in the sights, sounds, scents and tastes of one of the US's most vibrant cities

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"I'VE stepped on an alligator a million times.

It's safe to say that Charles J. Kropke is no ordinary tour guide. But then again, Miami is no ordinary tourist destination.

Charles is a font of stories about adventures in the Everglades, from stepping on 'gators to searching for missing billionaires to gadding about in the swamp with Middle Eastern princesses.

Oh, and don't get him started on the crocodiles at the nuclear power plant.

But we aren't here to see the Everglades, a vast hinterland of brackish water flowing across southern Florida (from the plane on the way in, it looks like an empty wilderness and then, bam - all of a sudden - there's the sixth largest metropolitan area in the US).

"I like to compare Miami today to New York in its boom years at the start of the 20th century," says Charles.

"Lots of energy, lots of growth, driven by a young population, many of them immigrants from places like Cuba or Argentina, who've come here to make a better life for themselves."

The first stop on our tour is Little Havana, where the earliest Cuban exiles settled back in the Fifties after fleeing Fidel Castro's revolution.

We stop for an eyeopening jolt of Colada - a Cuban espresso, coffee sweetened with cane sugar, served in a Styrofoam cup and then shared out into shot glasses at El Pub on 8th Street (Calle Ocho).

Then it's a short stroll down to Domino Park, where locals sit in the shade of the palm trees to drink coffee, smoke cigars and - yes - play lightning-fast dominos.

Calle Ocho is alive with bars, including the famous Ball and Chain (where a friend once met Billy Connolly).