Airboats and Alligators

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Stasa mentioned a fun but touristy activity for us to do while in Miami--an airboat tour. I really had no idea what it was about. She'd mentioned it was through "the everglades," but I honestly didn't even know what the Everglades were.

We made the short drive in and chose an airboat tour location at random. The one we picked was called Gator Park, and it had an Indian Outpost souvenir shop. We forked over $24 each (wowza! Grab some brochures that have coupons from your hotel if you go), and then hopped in a boat with a dozen other tourists.

Our tour guide steared the boat from a seat on a perch above us. He was filled with information and easily pointed out turtles, birds and alligators to us. We learned a bit about the Everglades; it's a national park. Everglades National Park is one of the largest national parks in the country. Our tour guide explained that a patch of sawgrass (named from the teeth on its sides, which are quite sharp) is a glade, and the glades in south Florida stretch on for miles, hence the name Everglades. At one point, he even jumped into the water to demonstrate how shallow it was. Apparently, the rain waters can make the water levels fluctuate a great deal. In a very dry season, there can be almost no water at all, and he explained that you can, "Walk through without getting your shoes muddy."

The tour was informative, and our guide was great. Although $24 is a hefty price tag, I thought it was worth it. After the tour, however, we were herded into a pavillion to watch "gator wrestling." While we learned even more about alligators, I would have prefered to skip this whole next part of the tour. The man brought out a scorpian and enjoyed scaring people with it, and then he brought out a skunk. I couldn't help but wonder how much of the day the skunk stays in the tiny crate. After walking around with those animals, he then demonstrated alligator wrestling. Apparently, an alligator can't see directly in front of it or behind it. Native Americans used to use this to jump on an alligator's back and get its mouth pinned. While it was interesting information, I'm too much of an animal lover to enjoy the animals on display.

In all, the airboat tour was better than I expected, but the demonstration left a negative impression on me and wasn't a good way to end our adventure.

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Photos

Aminta and I are Ready for the Airboat Tour
Aminta was not very happy with sitting at the end of the bench, closest to the alligators.

I'm in the Everglades!
They really do seem to go on forever. It's a good thing we had a guide because I would have no idea how to get back to land.

It's an Alligator!
We saw alligators of varying sizes--baby gators at less than a foot in length to full-sized gators at more than six feet in length.

Aminta and the Alligator
See, she's only a little afraid! When I yelled, "Watch out!" to her, she jumped about ten feet in the air. Ha!

Stasa and the Alligator Statue
If I said it was real, would you believe me?

Comments

[Mitch]

Great rides through the grasslands
Have been on a few 3 airboat rides at different places in the Everglades and have received completely different tours. Rides in Everglades city were not through the grass but open water and mangroves. The kids and my self liked the rides out on us 41 the best. The area from Miami to Naples on us 41 has all the grass land rides . The last tour was with swamplandairboattours.com lots of gators and good info the kids also got to hold a baby gator. Mitch