South Florida greeted us with sunshine, high humidity and 80 degree weather. I was in hog heaven! After landing in Fort Lauderdale, Ry and I picked up our compact rental car (this thing was so tiny it didn't even have a trunk) and made our way to a shopping center to pick-up foods and essential camping items we weren't able to cram into our two bags. We were on our way to the Flamingo Campground at Everglades National Park...if you're not familiar with this campground it is 38 miles past the park entrance and there are no decent shopping venues in the park to shop at.
Being fruit and food lovers we decided to stop at the last fruit stand before entering the park named "Robert is Here". We learned later this fruit stand was started by Robert when he was six years old (1950's) and has turned it into his family business. The reason I'm mentioning Robert is Here is because they make some of the best fruit milkshakes you could ever dream of! Dad- I promise you would even drink these :) We went out on a limb and bought a shake that had a fruit we'd never heard of, black sapote, mixed with coconut. So what is black sapote? Well looks like a rotten tomato that tastes just like chocolate pudding! And as a chocolate lover I can vouch this fruit is the best chocolate substitute I've ever had. In fact these shakes were so good Ry and I had three shakes from Roberts while we were in the area. I highly recommend stopping in.
After getting a good night's rest in our tent, we decided to explore the Everglades via it's waterways so we rented a canoe. We expected the eight hour voyage to consist of small canals through dense mangroves as shown in the following two pictures.
We were, however, greeted with a large swift moving lake (Coot Bay) with whipping winds that nearly capsized our boat after one hour of paddling calm channels. Just so you know, I'm not a novice paddler and Ry is a decent paddler, but we still managed to get caught up in a rather bad situation. First of all, the park maps, the free ones that is, are rather misleading scale-wise. And the ranger failed to mention how rapid of a current Coot Bay has when it's windy. So Ry and I paddled out of the calm channel into a white capped lake and were swept across the ~ 2 mile lake in a matter of 15 minutes. We eventually found a mangrove to hold onto while we reassessed the map and our options for the return trip.
While we were looking over the map and eating lunch a stray dolphin swam ~15 feet from our canoe and headed up stream. It was nice to know another animal was making the trek upstream along with us :)
We found an alternative path back to the canoe docks which intersected with Coot Bay. To get there, however, required paddling halfway across Coot Bay, but it was our only option. As we set out we quickly realized how difficult our return paddle would be. For every one stroke Ry and I made in unison we moved forward less than 3 feet. And if we stopped paddling we would go backwards more than 20 feet. As soon as our canoe caught the wind we spun around and headed straight towards the mangroves. It was rather scary. Luckily, Ry and I were able to slowly make it across the lake (it took us about 2 hours). We were able to find safety in a small canal with dense brush that blocked both the wind and current. We were ecstatic! And exhausted.
We finished our canoe trip out in the calm canals dodging tree limbs, spotting birds and swatting mosquitoes. We paddled for a total of 7 hours. Dinner and sleep were calling our names.
The next morning we decided to stick to the land. So we headed to the Snake Bight trail in hunt of a Burmese Python. The Python hunt was set to kick off one week after we left the Glades so we were hopeful to see one of these non-native 20 foot snakes. Luck would have it that we never saw one, but the thought of bumping into a giant strangler kept us both on our toes the entire hike.
We wound up driving to all the ecotype stops in the park and decided to venture outside of the park to the second Glade entrance, Snake Valley. It's a rather long drive to Snake Valley, but we figured we should check out the slough (the irrigation system for the Glades) since we were in the area. We were pleasantly surprised by the park!
Before entering the park we already spotted five gators!
Ryan was in hog heaven!
Once we entered Shark Valley we learned that they rent bicycles and have a 15 mile paved trail along a waterway that gators and birds love to hang out in. So of course we put on our sneakers rented bikes and started pedaling.
The beach cruisers weren't exactly cut out for our fast pace, but we managed to complete the 15 mile route in under an hour and a half with lots of gator/bird stops.
Plus at the halfway point there was a giant look out tower where you could see the entire slough!
Wood stork in the brush.
Shark Valley should be better publicized. This place was awesome!
After dinner, we went on a night hike back in the Everglades. I told Ry about how we used to spot animals on our night hikes in Costa Rica...we would place the flashlight between our eyes and scan the trees. This way when the light bounced off an animals retinas we would see the yellow/green reflection and know there was an animals there. He thought my technique was silly at first, but he quickly realized how effective it is!
We wound up spotting ~ 10 gators on the Anhinga Trail right inside the Glades main entrance. It's a paved trail so night hikes make this accessible and well traversed trail a lot more interesting.
After three nights camping in the Glades, we packed up and headed to the Keys!
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