CUBA: DAY 2, MIAMI AND EVERGLADES TOUR

CUBA: DAY 2, MIAMI AND EVERGLADES TOUR

We scheduled another half day with our tour guide, with the intention of seeing the Everglades National Park.  But with the government shutdown, the park was closed so our guide, Martin, had to figure out something else, which turned out to be much better anyway.  We drove past the park and onto Miccosukee land (see yesterday’s blog), where we stopped at a place where they do airboat rides.  There weren’t any other tourists around so we got a small airboat all to ourselves, with Benny at the helm.  The Everglades are very different from a swamp:  the glades are moving, fresh water; swamps are often a mix of fresh and salt water and the water is stagnant.  Swamps usually have lots of cypress trees dripping with Spanish moss (which isn’t actually Spanish and isn’t moss, but I won’t quibble).  The glades often look like grasslands with a few trees here and there, or thick jungle, but there is little or no land – everything is in 3 to 5 feet of water.  Early settlers and native people often did not even use canoes – they just walked through the water because it is so shallow. 

Anyway, the airboat took off in the direction of tall sweet grass and saw-blade grass as far as I could see, with occasional small areas of open water filled with water lilies.  After about 10-15 minutes we arrived at a hummock, which is a small bit of land that has been slowly built up over hundreds of years.  Benny’s family, including aunts, uncles, cousins, parents and the like, had lived there for several generations living off the land in thatched, open-air, shelters built over the damp land.  The family finally moved into regular houses in the Miccosukee village in 1989 when the tribe opened a casino.

Apparently there are three alligators who live around there year-round.  We saw Papa, who was about 13 feet long – really big – and hiding just below the surface of the water.  Then Benny knelt down on the wooden walkway and called the alligators – making a sort of staccato croaking sound.  So Mama showed up, a bit smaller than Papa and much more active.  She swam in close to the walkway and lifted up her head towards Benny’s outstretched arm and snapped her jaws several times.  He didn’t seem to be worried.  Then we went to another wooden walkway where Jumper had arrived in response to Benny’s call.  Jumper crawled right up onto the walkway, opened and closed his jaws several times in attempt to get Benny’s arm, and then started basking in the sun.  Because Jumper blocked our access back to the airboat, Benny finally had to grab Jumper by the tail and push him, nose first, back into the water.  What a show.

Finally we climbed aboard again, donned our ear protectors (the airboat motor is very loud) and took off, back for shore, which really isn’t a shore but the road acts like a levy and is obviously higher than the water table.

Next stop was an art gallery owned by the photographer Clyde Butcher.  I’ve never heard of him, but apparently he is been called the Ansel Adams of the south, and that description is quite true.  He had some color photos but most were black and white, mostly studies of cypress trees, the everglades, and ghost orchids (which are rare and very difficult to find).  His work is truly stunning.  Then it was back to town, where we drove past the Ukrainian Greek Catholic church (a new combination for me) and then lunch at an all-Cuban, outdoor eatery – fresh tropical juices and a $10 heaping plate of suckling pig, rice and black beans, and fried cassava was enough to feed 5 people and was fabulous.  In general, food here is much cheaper than in California.