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Our trip to Florida started out as a spontaneous almost-unplanned trip with a day or two in Miami followed by Key West followed by a day in Orlando, but eventually fortuitously turned out to be a wonderful enjoyable nature trip!
After visiting the Dolphin center, we drove to the Alligator Farm in the Everglades National Park. This is one of the largest national parks in the US, Everglades being the largest wetland ecosystem in the country, spanning more than a 1.5 million acres!
It is predominantly covered in swampy land in which mangroves thrive, and a large population of (alli)gators. Because it was too hot and sunny to do kayaking in the lakes there, we ended up going to the indoor-ish covered alligator farm. One of the gator trainers there entertained us by putting his arms and head near a large male alligator’s mouth and opening it to count its teeth! It was scary to watch at first, and even scarier to see the trainer himself was pretty scared. The audience however kept applauding his crazy courage to put himself at risk like that.
At the end of it, each of us had the opportunity to hold a baby alligator, with its mouth taped of course, after being taught how to correctly hold it. It was an interesting first-time experience, it felt slimy and gooey underneath and scaly and hard at the top. A few folks didn’t end up listening to the instruction or just didn’t hold it correctly, so the poor alligator got a bit startled and tried to furiously twist and wriggle, until the trainer came to help with the situation.
Overall, a fun visit and experience - if you ever get a chance to hold an alligator, take it!
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