The Everglades
With the past 4 days spent exploring the space coast, big cities, and beautiful beaches of Florida, we decided to mix things up a bit and explore what Florida’s nature has got to offer to us. As it happened to be, the Everglades National park was on the way home. With one of world’s most diverse ecosystem, the Everglades offer both a tropical and subtropical habitat for visitors to explore.
The Everglades is a bit different from the rest of the National Parks in that a lot of it has to be explored by boat. However, for folks like us with limited time and a car, we chose to explore the land portions of the park. Everglades has two main entrances that offer different trails and activities. The first entrance when driving from Key West is called Ernest F. Coe Visitor Center and is located just west of Florida City.
After entering the park and paying a $20 entrance fee, we checked out the visitor center which had all kinds of exhibits and a ranger kiosk to ask any questions. It was entertaining to learn of all the habitats and species that live together in this massive park.
After getting back in the car and driving a few miles, we stopped at the Royal Palm Visitor Center to do couple of walking trails. The first one was called Anhinga Trail which had a beautiful 0.8 mile long boardwalk over a sawgrass marsh. We saw turtles, anhingas, herons, egrets, and many other birds. And then there it was…we finally saw what people come to Everglades for…an Alligator!! It was really neat to see one out in the wild instead of a zoo. Since it had been raining non-stop for the past month, the ranger told us that the alligators were a little harder to see than usual.
We then walked over to our next trail called the Gumbo Limbo. The trail was just 0.4 mile long but it took us into a densely shaded forest with eye-popping greenery everywhere. There were ferns, palm trees, and air plants everywhere we looked. I recommend putting on some bug spray as the place was teeming with all kinds of insects.
Next, it was time to drive over to the other entrance of the park that was around 1.5 hours away called Shark Valley. No…you won’t find any sharks here but the big attraction is the 2 hour fully-guided tram tour. The tickets are a little steep at $24/adult but the tour is totally worth it. Our tour was lead by a naturalist with a complete knowledge of all the birds and wildlife that exist in the park. We saw all kinds of birds including storks, egrets, and heron.
About 15 minutes into the tour, we came across a very large alligator mere inches from the tram and it was truly a sight to behold. The tram slowly went past the alligator as people took pictures and videos of the hissing beast.
At the tour’s halfway point, we stopped and got off the tram to take a sloped ramp up onto a 45-foot high observation deck. From the deck, you could see 20 miles out in all direction of the everglades. We even saw a 16 foot alligator swimming down a creek while a snapping turtle came bravely swimming underneath him. All of us got on our toes anticipating an exciting battle but alas I guess the alligator must have been too full from his last meal to do anything.
With the sunset approaching, we made a final stop where the tram operator turned off the tram and asked everybody to be silent. Pretty soon we heard a commotion in the tree branches where close to 100 birds were roosting. They were chirping and biting and making all kinds of screeching noises. It was almost a serene feeling to be one with nature for just a few minutes.
