Everglades Hike

The town of Everglades City is the closest town to the Everglades in which visitors can stay. It is TINY. This hotel is one of the very few there. In the center of the hotel is a swimming pool, all enclosed in that meshy screen door material. At first I thought this appeared strange and tacky but very quickly I learned that it was an absolute necessity due to the obscene amount of bugs and mosquitoes which were always present no matter the time of day.

After we checked into our hotel and doused ourselves in bug spray we headed out for a hike in the Everglades. I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but I loathe bugs. There were these grasshoppers there that were unpleasantly large and unafraid of me. Plus they just looked frightfully scary:

Of course we also saw more alligators, one of which Mr X got quite close to in order to have his photo with it taken:

This is called a Strangler Fig. It's well adapted for growing in dark, tropical forests where the competition for light is intense. It happens like this: a bird drops a seed into a crevice of an existing tree and the seed germinates and begins to send it's roots downward, wrapping around the existing host tree in the process. Occasionally the host tree dies, leaving the Strangler Fig wrapped around nothing. That would be interesting to see.

They put up 'boardwalks' on a lot of these hikes for people's safety from creatures and swamps and sink holes. I know I wouldn't have been as willing to go on this hike if I was having to make my way through dark, thick vegetation through which visibility was poor.

It really was a beautiful hike though. I've never seen anything like it anywhere else I've been.