Alligators and Mosquitoes

In the morning we took the same road back to the mainland as the previous day – about 4 hours later after driving through a few big rainstorms we arrived in the everglades. It was still raining outside but it was definitely a plus because the rain helped to keep the temperature to a cooler mid 20s. It would have been really hot, humid and disgusting if the sun was out when we were touring around at 2PM. We walked a number of paths – the first one being the most recommended. We ended up seeing 6 alligators! They were not very noticeable as they only had the tops of their heads out of the water. We were watching them and waiting for them to do something, but they were quite boring and didn’t move at all. Four of the alligators had previously been spotted by other people, but I managed to find 2 of them on my own. The other two trails were walks through what felt like heavily forested areas and they were completely infested with mosquitoes. I ended up swallowing one of them and a second one flew up my nose, but aside from that I was the buffet lunch. I got completely eaten alive and there was nothing I could do about it. Luckily they didn’t cause me much problem after we had left the everglades but while I was walking there I was constantly flailing my arms and smacking my legs trying to keep the damn things away from me. They even followed us around when we were in the car.

These other two trails we didn’t even see any animals – just mosquitoes. We drove up to Hollywood (Florida) for the night where we stayed with a friend. There wasn’t much to do except go to the casino, so that’s what we did. I put my $20 into a video poker machine and I left the casino with some extra change in my pocket – one quarter and one dime, a whopping 35 cents!

Some of the wildlife we saw. The aligator was the only one we saw at the everglades itself.