Day 60 - Florida City

Apologies

I feel I should start off my blog today (on my two thirds of the way through day!) with an apology - I've been doing my blog a little half heartedly for the past few days because I've been either driving insane hours or just feeling really pooped out. I have a lot to say, it just seems that by the time I get to a place with wifi it's generally a place with a bed and sleeping wins over fighting with my laptop.

Everglades

Today I spent the day in the Everglades National Park.

Mangroves

In keeping with local custom, even the visitor centre is pink and turquoise!

I have definitely lost my $80 annual National Parks pass (I spent hours checking all my stuff) but I convinced the hostel to let me use one of their passes so I didn't have to pay the $10. I'm going to have to think carefully about the National Parks that are left between here and the end of my trip and decide whether I should replace it.

Anyway, back to the Everglades. I started off by going on a Park Ranger led walk where he explained to us all about the park and the problems they are having trying to restore it to its natural state of forty years ago, before Florida's waters were all either drained or redirected to sugar plantations. They are also faced with a bunch of invasive creatures that people have dumped here, like pythons and all sorts of non-native fish.

I was lucky enough to see a bunch of alligators (the Ranger reckons we saw some of the biggest of the park's 1.5million) AND a crocodile. This is the only place in the world where those two species coexist, as one lives in fresh and the other in saltwater.

Can you see three alligators together in the middle of the picture?

This is the crocodile - the little gray thing between the parallel  twigs

This is a guy taking a picture of the crocodile once I convinced him it was not a  piece of floating rubbish (this was a corroborated by a local tour guide)

CROCODILE!! (just a picture of a poster, sorry)

Look how close it was to us!

I learned some cool stuff about alligators - did you know those bumps on their back are made of bone? Did you know that as they have no natural predators they normally die of starvation when they stop being able to grow teeth?

I also found out some cool facts about the local birds but I soon forgot because HELLO! there were ALLIGATORS nearby! Some of you may be interested in birdies though so here they are:

Vultures!

Turtle (not a bird)

Boardwalks

I do love me a good boardwalk and the Everglades is full of them:

Day 59 - Fort Myers to Florida City

Alligator Alley

Today I did some more driving (surprise surprise) and had planned to visit the Everglades. I think I might be coming down with something though because instead I had to stop halfway here (it was only a three hour drive) to have a sleep and I still feel rough.  The road I was driving along to go West to East across Florida is nicknamed "Alligator Alley" because when it was built the sceptics said only alligators would use it.

I did go buy some fruit and veg from a famous place called "Robert is Here" where they had the strangest fruit I've ever seen and avocados the size of your head! They also, randomly, have goats out the back and they were all fighting with each other rather ferociously:

Boiled peanuts seem to be a Florida thing, I tried one, it was pretty grim - soft and soggy and salty.

This rather handsome goat was not fighting, he just wanted a cuddle off this lady goat's bottom

Day 58 - Tampa to Fort Myers

Beach bum

Today I parked myself on a sunny beach for lots of hours. I slept most of the day, I was really tired from yesterday's long drive. 

Not a bad spot to spend the day...

Around five, when the sun was about to set and it was getting chilly, I settled in to a comfortable position to watch the sunset. 

To my surprise, carfuls of people started to run on to my otherwise deserted beach. Within minutes there were about fifty people and a white plastic arch are gathered a few feet away from me. 

Just before sunset I hear cries of "there she is!" (in Spanish- I think they were probably Cuban) and I turn to see a young woman in a sparkly white dress with a slit up her thigh walking towards the people. I realise she's the bride, mostly from her ceremonious "bride walk" (in her bare feet) As she arrives at the group of people they all start singing "na na na na na" (to the tune of the wedding music) which was hilarious because it was improvised and really out of tune but touching.

Looking nice, demure...

... whoa!!! Leg!!

Ten minutes later the sun had set, they were married, everyone got into their cars and drove away. It was nice.

In case you'd forgotten what I look like

Day 57 - Fort Waldron to Tampa

Long day!

Today I drove for 13 hours. I'm tiiiiiired!

My new German friend Karoline was with me and we went to some cool places and saw some beautiful beaches:

W