So it’s a blazing hot day in Miami. Friends have convinced me to go for a bike
ride in the Everglades. The humidity is
so high that I feel like I’m bound in plastic wrap but what the hell, I’ve
convinced myself that this is a great opportunity to commune with nature.
When we get to Everglades National Park, we rent creaky bikes from this
old guy in this dodgy little shack. He
tells us not to ride over bird poop on the trail because there may be fish
bones in it that could puncture a tire.
Why did I not process this advice and just go wait in the car?
But no, onward and forward we go. The trail is 15 miles long; 8 miles to a
viewing platform and 7 miles back. The trail
is paved with cracked old asphalt and is as wide as a driveway. It’s elevated a couple of feet, I gather to
avoid flooding. Because it’s the start of the rainy season, the water is right up to the trail. Immediately we see alligators in the water
and along the banks of the trail. Oh, and
did I mention, there are no fences bordering the trail (?!).
As we putter along, it seems like the gators are getting bigger and
there are a lot more of them. And they
all appear to be facing the trail.
Hhhmmm. But I can’t pay attention
to that – I’m obsessively avoiding bird poop on the trail, weaving around like
a drunkard.
And riddle me this - how come we appear to be the only ones on the
trail biking? Every now and then, a tram
whizzes by taking smarter people than I on a tour in the safety of a motorized
vehicle in splendidly canopied comfort (in my defense, my tree-hugging friend
didn’t present the tram option to me at the outset…). But otherwise, we are alone in the gatorhood.
Many miles into the trek, we see something on the trail ahead. Gadzooks! It’s a gator!
The massive beast is on the trail and has taken a big dump (which, when
you think about it, is deliciously ironic since we humans tend to stop at the
side of the road and go into the bushes to do our business).
What do we do? Turn back? Will we provoke the alligator if we ride by
it? At this point I am in a full-on flop
sweat and blind panic attack. My friend
tells me that it’s fine to ride by it and not to worry because alligators only
eat once a month. Well how the hell do I
know what time of the month it is for this gator? And we know that this beast has made room in his
belly by vacating on the trail.
My friends decide to proceed and the only thing I can think of that is worse
than riding by this gator is the prospect of being left alone in this place, so
I follow. One by one we ride by this
creature and it does not bat an eyelash (do gators even have eye lashes?). Well now I’m feeling proud of myself and very
Crocodile Dundee-ish for conquering my fear.
We complete the trek. I am at one
with nature. I’m also dehydrated and I
look like a salt lick. Oh, and next
time, I’m taking the tram.
Postscript: So it’s a week later
and I’m in Paris. I’m in my hotel room
and have the tv tuned to CNN International.
They are airing a story about the Florida Everglades being overrun with huge
pythons. Stupid people get these snakes
as pets and, when the snakes become unmanageable, they release them in the
Everglades where they thrive and grow to upwards of 30 feet long! Then the reporter cuts to a picture of a dead
python that wildlife officials recently discovered. The snake has exploded and there is a dead
alligator protruding from its belly.
This snake is so big that it has eaten an alligator and this has all
gone down where I was biking a week ago!
I’m dizzy. The room starts
spinning. I fall onto the hotel bedspread
face first. Ew!
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