Tracey Alvarez: Friday I-Wish-I-Were-There (Florida Everglades)

Welcome to my Friday I-Wish-I-Were-There Blog.
Today I’m taking a trip to the hot, sultry swamps of the Florida Everglades and the morning we spent at the Everglades Alligator Farm.

Highlights:

Alligator show. Jeremy, the one-man Alligator wrangler running the show, was a hard case—but I guess you have to be when it’s your job to drag a pissed off, 200+kg reptile by its tail into a tiny arena. He demonstrated about the power of the Alligator’s jaw and then sat on and held one’s jaw shut with his chin. We then got to hold and pat a tiny edition of the 200+kg momma version, which was pretty cool.

Airboat ride into the Florida Everglades. This was an exhilarating (but very LOUD) experience, and the four of us had a blast. Me, being me, chose to sit on the outside edge so my then six-year-old daughter would be safe—and guess who got soaked to the skin when the airboat controller dude performed a couple of 360 degree spins. Yup. Right down to my knickers. The family thought this was hilarious. On a less thrilling note, we saw quite a few wild gators, some cute turtles and a couple of beautiful white Egrets. I loved the sign we spotted on one of the banks also.

Alligator feeding. I have no idea who the dude was feeding rats to these truly enormous gators, but boy, that guy has balls of steel. Anyone would think from the casual way he wandering among these creatures that he was dishing out dog treats to a group of geriatric, half-blind, toothless golden Labrador retrievers…

Snake show. Taken again by Jeremy, who obviously has a serious thing for reptiles, we learned about the four venomous snakes in Florida (the Rattlesnake, Coral snake, Copperhead and the Cottonmouth). He then asked a volunteer—my ten year old son Joshua— to put his hand into a pillowcase and pick up a snake which he said was one of the four venomous kinds previously mentioned. Of course we knew he was joking, but Joshua didn't, yet he showed no hesitation plunging his arm into the pillowcase and picking the snake up! After Joshua had been holding the snake for a minute, Jeremy let him off the hook by telling him it was a harmless Pine snake. He then called for another volunteer and chose a little 6 year old boy from the audience who said he didn't like snakes—can you guess where he was going with this…? Jeremy got him to touch this tiny python, and asked if he was brave enough to hold the snake. The boy put his hand out for it, but Jeremy said he had another snake for him to hold, and made him shut his eyes—while he grabbed this 2 meter python and then draped it across his shoulders! But this was a brave little kid, and although he looked terrified he didn't freak out—though I wonder if the boy is still scared of snakes after Jeremy coiled the creature around the boy’s neck, and made jokes about how the python wasn't hungry as it had eaten a kid the day before. Later we had an opportunity to hold the same python. Both Joshua and I were happy to, but the look on my husband’s face (he’s deathly afraid of snakes) was a testament to his bravery.