A swampside walk leads to a close encounter with a 10ft alligator at the Everglades National Park.
The alligator has the most powerful jaws in the world, snapping shut with a force of about 3,000lb per square inch, or PSI. (To get some idea what this means, consider that an African lion has a PSI force of a trifling 970.) I am given this detail by Graham Mitchell, a wilderness guide, while I’m standing up to my thighs in a swamp – in shorts and open-toed sandals – with an alligator sunning itself on a log about 10ft away. The local cottonmouth snake, continues Graham airily, is so called because the inside of its mouth is bright white, although you wouldn’t necessarily want to get close enough to see this detail for yourself. If bitten by this snake, a human being will die in agony within a few hours.
The flat, grassy landscape of the Everglades National Park in Florida is so full of these snakes that Graham calls it cottonmouth dome. Still, I reasoned, if he was wading through the swamp waters with bare legs and only his knowledge and a walking stick for protection, then I could, too. But I followed his footsteps religiously, nervous that any deviation could be fatal. I’d been given fair warning. The motto of Graham’s walking tour through the Everglades is: “Never safe, always fun.”
A million people visit this area every year, usually by airboat, which roars across the marsh like a tiny hovercraft. But I wanted to try a quieter, greener way to get close to nature. We had waded carefully around the bulging trunks of the cypresses, barely rippling their reflections on the surface of the water. Just a few feet above us pink-feathered spoonbills and a red shouldered hawk perched. Ibis and herons fished silently. An orchid sprung from a branch, waiting patiently to flower. I felt as if I were in a primordial wilderness.
And the alligator sunbathing on the log? “The trick is not to get too close,” said Graham, as if I needed any encouragement to keep my distance. Alligators, he says, are misunderstood. They don’t set out to attack you, but if you stumble across one in the garden, on the golf course or in water where you have inexplicably decided to take a swim, it will bite to defend itself. Then, if it’s exceptionally upset, or particularly large and hungry, it may drag you underwater and twist you into the infamous death roll.
That morning, as we’d driven into the eastern Everglades on one of the few roads though the national park, Graham pulled over next to a small bridge. We got out so that I could have my first reptilian encounter on foot. A 10ft alligator sat on the swamp side just below. It was marvellously gnarled and primitive-looking, staring at us with beady eyes and a toothy grimace. It moved suddenly like a flash. I squealed and grabbed Graham’s arm. But the monster’s quick motion had been one of escape – away into the deep water under the bridge. We had frightened it.
Encounters with such wild animals made the tour incredibly special. So did simple methods of transport: walking and wading in cypress forest and punting through mangrove swamps at sunset on a pole boat. These craft have pointed bows like a kayak to cut through overhanging undergrowth, but their square stern platforms and propulsion method could have come straight from the River Cam.
We glided soundlessly up a wide, glassy creek, past ghostly Spanish moss dangling from tall trees. Butterflies and dragonflies coasted through the steamy, still air. We drifted past a 6ft alligator floating lazily in the water. I held my breath. It dived silently under the boat, leaving only a trail of bubbles. It should have been terrifying, but it was beautiful. This was far more stirring than an airboat ride. And it felt far safer than Miami.
Getting there:
Everglades Wilderness Tours: walking and canoeing tours of eastern and southern Everglades National Park, based at Everglades Hostel (tel: 305 248 1122 or www.evergladeshostel.com ). Day tours cost $80pp for hostel guests, $100pp for non-guests, packed lunch included.
Everglades Adventure Tours (tel: 561 985 8207 or www.evergladesadventuretours.com ). Offers pole boat eco-tours of western Everglades National Park, Big Cypress National Preserve or Fakahatchee Strand State Preserve. Three departures daily; $99pp two-hour tour, $169pp half-day tour (packed lunch included), $115pp two-hour full moon trips. Reservations by e-mail or phone, or just turn up.
Source: Joanna Walters. The Times : February 13, 2010
Related posts: