Eastern Everglades

My parents and me spent the weekend of November 6th in the eastern part of the Everglades National Part, just a couple of miles away from Miami.

This park is actually the estuary of the slowest river in the world, that makes a refuge for wildlife. Famous for being the home of the American alligator, the park is also a paradise for the bird lovers.

On Saturday November 6th, we left our small hotel in Homestead early in the morning to have a chance to spot more animals...

We were not mistaking. During our first walk, we saw many birds, many alligators and even a turtle which I didn't have the time to take a picture of... All of that wildlife surrounded by an amazing landscape: pounds, swamps, rivers, hammocks...

After this 1-hour walk, we headed toward the southern part of the Everglades, Flamingo. There we went on a boat that led us to interior lakes through narrow canals.

This cruise with a ranger as guide, was very interesting. Just after its departure, we had the chance to spot an American crocodile:

It is different from the alligator by its lighter color and its V-shaped jaw, when the alligator's one is U-shaped. Moreover, the gator prefers fresh water, and the crocodile salty water. The Everglades are the only place on Earth where crocodiles and alligators live together, thanks to the mix of salty and fresh water...

Then we learnt many things about the different types of mangrove, especially that the red mangrove (below) gives its color to the water.

The canal led us to a lake, then another canal and to Whitewater bay, the largest freshwater tank in the US.

Back in Flamingo, the mosquitos forced us to go back in the car...

On our way back, we made a last stop to go in an observation tower. There we were able to have a better view of what the Everglades realy are: a large, slow and slough river flowing form Lake Okeechobee. We took the time to enjoy this amazing landscape.

Red mangrove

Then we went back to Miami Beach to enjoy our Saturday night in a good restaurant on Ocean Drive.

On Sunday morning we headed West toward another entrance of the park: the Shark Valley. No, there is no shark there. Alligator is enough. But there is a river downstream, in the southeastern part of the Everglades, where lots of sharks live.

The first thing we did there is one of the biggest tourist attraction in Florida: an airboat tour. This is a lot of fun, but not really environment-friendly... This is why all the airboat tours are outside the limits of the National Park. This noisy boat made us able to access places inaccessible with another vehicle (like the old indian villages and ruins you can see below) due to the shallow waters surrounding us. But it also made most of the wildlife hide or run away.

Here are some picture of the tour...

And a movie (be careful, this is very noisy)!

This is worth being done once, this is fun, but this is not the best way to discover the Everglades.

After that we entered the park through the Shark Valley entrance. We had two choices there: take a train or rent bikes that enable people to go to an oservation tower. We made a third choice: walk on the trail. Indeed we didn't have the time to make the train tour nor the bike tour. We prefered to walk a little bit before we go to the beach for the afternoon. And it was actually really good. After five minutes we met an alligator asleep and obviously not hungry on the side of the trail...

We also spotted Florida turtles and many birds.

One of them, the anhinga, is excellent at underwater fishing. But after that, it's impossible for an anhinga to fly; it needs to dry its wings. I guess it becomes an easy catch for gators...

This short walk done, we went to Key Biscayne to stay on the beach for the afternoon. Before that, we stopped in a BBQ restaurant to eat...a gator burger! Excellent, a little chewy...and an excellent way to finish this "Gator Weekend"!

Coming soon: Thanksgiving in San Francisco

Key West and Dry Tortugas Seaplane Trip

Hi everyone! I'm back on my blog after a couple of weeks of break. I now write my blog in English to meet the demand of my numerous (or not) readers from all around the world...

I didn't write for a long time because my parents were visiting me. And we had two great weekends. The first one was a round trip to Key West, starting on November 5.

The first good surprise was the hotel: unexpected private house in a tropical garden next to the sea, four swimming pools...really nice, as you can see.

We arrived there on the Friday night. We spent the Saturday morning strolling around Key West and its old houses. We also went to the Southernmost Point.

After the lunch, we drove to the Key West airport for the surprise I made to my parents: a seaplane trip to Dry Tortugas National Park.

Unfortunately the weather wasn't that good: a little cold, windy, cloudy... But we were still able to spot some sharks during the one-hour flight, as well as amazing landscapes.

Then we 'landed' near Fort Jefferson, a former military base and prison.

Dry Tortugas National Park is mainly an undersea park. There are two islands though. We can only go on Garden Key, the island with the fort, because Bush Key is a shelter of nesting birds.

After a very fun landing on the sea, we started the visit of Fort Jefferson. I would like to tell you a bit of history but I forgot the dates... The Navy firstly had built a fort because of the strategic location of the island, in order to control the waterway in the Gulf of Mexico. It had never been finished.

They had transformed it in a prison. The most famous prisoner is Dr Mudd. This physician was convicted of aid in the murder of Abraham Lincoln. He actually treated the real murderer. He was then released after an epidemic that killed most of the people on the island because he tried his best to save whoever could be saved...

You can see his cell below.

There were also a boat left here by the cuban illegal immigrants... Many of them try to cross the sea between Cuba and Florida on that kind of boats. Most of them never succeed...

Because of the weather we were not able to enjoy the best activity on this island: snorkeling, looking for one of the numerous sea turtles...

Anyway, it was a great afternoon.

We spent the evening walking in Downtown Key West, eating seafoods, drinking mojitos...

On the Sunday, we decided to visit some famous houses of Key West. The first one was the house or Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961), author of The Old Man and the Sea.

Nice house, in a tropical garden. There is a museum inside, 60 cats (this guy loved cats)... very interesting visit of a very strange man's house.

Then we went to the Little White House, where Presidents Truman and Eisenhower used to spend their vacations. Not a lot to see there.

Then we kept walking in Key West, met some roosters that were waking in the streets as well, ate a Key lime pie (really good by the way), saw some sharks (in the aquarium!) before a quick lunch.

After that, we took the car to go back to Miami. We stopped on Bahia Honda Key to rest on the beach but the water was a little cold. We also saw a pelican injured by a shark probably and told the rangers to take care of it.

And it was time to leave! And to go back to work for me...