Subject: Florida - 2
Date: January 19, 2002 11:01 AM
Hello Again:
After spending four days in the Keys, I headed for the Everglades. While the image I had in mind was of a vast area of swamp with mangrove trees and large open areas of water, in reality, most of the area is basically wet grassland. Since this is also the dry season, there is also less water evident. Having said this, however, there are still many areas that have enough water to support many alligators and literally hundreds of varieties of birds. Just 3 miles inside the park gate, I went for a walk on the Anhinga Trail, a combination of stone pathway and boardwalk that is named after the Anhinga - a fish eating bird that dives for its prey swimming underwater as adeptly as it flies. As I arrived, there were about 6 school busses unloading and I quickly started off to avoid the rush. Within the first 200 meters, I came upon a group of kids who were looking at an alligator (about 8 foot) that was lounging about 4 feet off of the trail. All there was separating him (her?) from the path was a rail fence that was completely open at the bottom. I have a picture of it and you can see the kids no more than 4 feet away!! I continued on with my walk and saw at least 40-50 alligators in the swamp and dozens of water birds that I had never seen. In fact, out of the 7 rolls of film that I took, probably a quarter of my picture are of birds - the variety is quite amazing. Over the next 3 days I visited a number of different nature areas that all provided viewing of a wonderful variety of animals and birds. The last one was called Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary which was about 20 miles inland from Fort Myers. This is an American Audubon protected wilderness that has a 2 1/2 mile boardwalk that winds through the "largest remaining stand of ancient bald cypress left in North America". It was certainly the longest boardwalk I have ever walked and provided great access to this wilderness area.
That night I watched the sun - a huge crimson ball - slowly sink into the Gulf of Mexico off of Sanibel Island. The beaches along this area of the coast are beautiful however the water was still too cold for me to venture in.
Early January is still considered to be a slower time for tourists and this year, because of recent events, there were even fewer tourists than normal. I saw next to no motels with No Vacancy signs during my trip and heard many local people complaining about the lack of tourists. Even "Floyd's Hostel and Crew House" ($16.00/nt) in Fort Lauderdale had rooms during my last night there. One of the guys sharing my room was from Sault St Marie. He looked to be in his early 20's and had been away for about a year. He was tending bar in New Orleans's but after Sept 11, tourism totally died there and he had come to Fort Lauderdale to work on repairing yachts - Fort Lauderdale is the yacht capital of the world. He was trying to save enough money to go to Europe. When I heard that, I had to bore him with a brief overview of my travels in Europe in 1966 (between my first and second years at McMaster). My recent solo travels have certainly been tinged with bit of deja vu. Although I have more money now and the major advantage of a car, I still am basically travelling as cheaply as possible, whether it be sleeping in a tent or in the back of the SUV or buying food in supermarkets. I have to laugh when I drool with envy over locals and tourists dining in the numerous classy restaurants with delectable menus while my main gourmet experience is McDonalds or Burger King!! It reminds me of when I would walk through the streets of Paris many years ago in my youth and look longingly at the fabulous meats in the windows of the Boulangeries and the mouth watering pastries in the Patisseries(apologies to Silvana and Susan for spelling) while I munched on a french stick with a piece of cheese! Ah well, it's all relative I suppose and I have many memories to cherish of my various travels.
That's it for now. All the best to you all.
Larry Return