Last weekend we took an airboat tour through the Everglades. The trip was a belated birthday present for my son. I have decided I’d rather give experiences instead of stuff — we have enough stuff. The tour was at Everglades Safari Park which is just one of many places that offer this experience.
The experience can best be described in pictures not words but I will attempt to do both.
The Everglades are vast, 6,000 square miles from Orlando to the Southern Peninsula. As a major watershed, or filtering of water via the ample sawgrass that grows there, they serve an important ecological function and are also the home to many, many animals. But when you first enter the Everglades via airboat, it is not that awesome (by awesome I mean the original meaning of awe-inpiring) — the landscape is flat and marshy with “fields” of sawgrass growing, a few trees sprouting out and lots of lily pads. The animals are submerged or hidden in the grass for the most part so at first it doesn’t seem like much.
The Everglades served as the backdrop for much of the military action during the Seminole Wars. The Seminole and Miccosukee people sought refuge within the isolated and relatively unknown expanse of land and water. [Source]
But as the airboat takes you in farther and farther, it glides right over the sawgrass, entering areas that look like they would be impassable. When you look back you see a small trail of water but otherwise nothing, no evidence you were even there. It was then that it hit me: airboats pass through this area hundreds of times a day and yet it looks untouched. The Everglades just gobble up the evidence with their insatiable appetite.
The Everglades are always hungry and that is why it is so important. It’s appetite cleans the water, purifies it. Its appetite constantly restores itself, creating new vegetation as soon as old one is destroyed. Its appetite also holds many secrets as there are many invasive species, both plants and animals, that now call the Everglades their home. They have the perfect cover in this vast area where so much of what takes place is submerged under water. Some of the most notable squatter animals are the Burmese python, originally from India, the Nile monitor and even a Nile crocodile. It is common belief that these species were introduced by exotic pet owners who no longer wanted their pet.
At first it was hard to see any animals but then our eyes became adapted to the landscape and we saw many different species tucked away: great blue herons, alligators both adult and babies, red hawks, and a beautiful brilliant blue bird that I forgot the name. So although the Everglades do not wow you at first glance like the Grand Canyon or Niagara Falls, the impact of its intensity accumulates over time and by the time the ride is over, you are overwhelmed.
After the ride, the park had some extras like a photo ops holding a baby alligator and a small zoo but the real star was the immensely powerful Everglades that surrounded us.
