Everglades-Air Boat Rides-Village

On February 9, we decided to head out to Gator Park (part of the Florida Everglades), Everglades National Park - Shark Valley, and Miccosukee Indian Village...The ride to these places is about 45 minutes north of the Miami Everglades Campground off of Route 997 & Route 41 (Tamiami Trail)...

The weather for this day was wonderful...

Arriving at Gator Park about 9:30am was a good time...
We had a coupon for Buy One Get One Free ride...The store was

filled with all kinds of souveniors...The only thing that we would be interested in would be a nice magnet...

While waiting for 10am to be our time to get on to an airboat, we watched other airboats to come in with them filled with people...

The seats were bench like seats and were flushed to the floor of the airboats...

There was an airboat with raised seats that we were hoping that we would be able to ride in...and when 10am got there, we among 16 others were lead to the raised seats on the airboat...Yeah! What was neat was that we both were able to have our own seats instead of being crowded

next to one another cause the raised seats were for 2 people per seat...

After being told about the airboat, what to do and not to do on the airboat, we took off slowly through the upper Everglades...While cruising slowly to open areas, we saw a few alligators and some egrets...After going down the main stream of the Everglades, the airboat driver put the boat in drive and off we went...It was really cool...The driver took us through the sawgrasses and stopped at certain spots and pointed out areas along the sawgrasses...There were egrets and great blue herons...There was another type of egret with white/black wings but I do not know what kind of egret it was and I couldn't find it in my book...

Our airboat ride was about 30 minutes long, which just wasn't long enough but it a way to see how it felt to ride in an airboat...We got off of the airboat and went in to the store to buy our magnet (the one on the left side with the gator who has the open mouth) for ourselves as a keepsake...We got our magnet and then got a bite to eat there before heading to Everglades National Park - Shark Valley...

Florida Everglades National Park - Shark Valley is off of Rte. 41, Tamiami Trail in Miami, Florida...We arrived at the gate of the park and paid our $10 to get in to the park and park...

Shark Valley has a loop that is for bikers and walkers along with a few other little paths/bridges to see the wildlife/plants/trees...The wild thing about this part of the park is that as you bike/walk along the asphalt path alligators are resting...sleeping...just looking at you...Nothing to fear the Park Ranger says...During the day the alligators are dormant and do not want to be bothered...All they want to do is sleep so that they can be refreshed when they wake up around dusk and go searching for their dinner...

Besides walking or renting a bike or bringing your own bike, you can also pay to ride a Shark Valley tram for about $18 per person and this tram tour takes you around a loop and points out all the trees/plants/alligators...We thought about taking this tram tour but at the time the tour was all filled and the next tour wasn't for another 2 hours later...so we decided to take a little walk down the asphalt path, in the hot sun...To rent a bike was $7/hour, I think...

So we took our little walk down the path and alligators are everywhere...They were on the banks just sunning and letting their body temperature get to where it needs to be for night time...Some alligators were even laying next to the path...At one point, I was about 5 feet away from one not even realizing that there was an alligator in front of me...Scarey!!! So I took my picture and backed up...There are signs that say to stay away from them about 15 feet...After that close encounter, I made sure I was 15 feet away...There were gators in the water just swimming...Now the egrets and the great blue herons were giving the alligators a fit...It seems that the birds like to antongonize the alligators...We saw green herons and anhingas and cormorants...
The loop at Shark Valley we didn't even begin to go on cause it was too hot, no shaded areas, and we wanted to move on to something else...We did go on the Bobcat Path before heading to the truck but there wasn't much to see on this path...Lots of reeds, grasses and trees...There was a sitting area with benches that we stopped at and rested for a little bit...

After the walk here at Shark Valley, we headed to the Miccosukee Indian Village...

We pulled in to the parking lot at Miccosukee Indian Village and could park anywhere...There was hardly anyone there but we decided to go in anyways...The admission fee was $8/person...We walked around in the store a little bit and saw all the souveniors and the blouses, jackets, skirts, and shirts that the Miccosukee Indian women make...The prices for these items were very high...We paid our fee and walked through the doors to the "village"...

As you walk through the doors out to the outside and in to the village all we saw were empty booths where there should be vendors and I am sure that at times there are lots of vendors who fill these stands...We saw carved out canoes, a mock set up of a bed, baby swing bed and how their clothes were hung up...As you walk the path, we came across 2 indian ladies sewing...They were making the skirts or shirts or jackets that we saw in the store...There is a path to a covered area but all you see are reeds...The path leads back to the middle of the village or to the museum...Richard and I walked in to the museum and saw a mock up of how the Miccosukee Village use to look like and an area made up of how wild life would be around them...The walls had all kinds of pictures and a movie room...It really wasn't much, at least it wasn't for me...

About 3pm, there was going to be Alligator Wrestling...So we headed to the stands where this was going to take place...But on the way, there was a solid wall pen and in this pen were little alligators...As we got close to the grandstand there were already people seated and a Miccosukee Indian already in the pit with the alligators...There were 3 alligators and I'm sure they ranged in age...The show was beginning to start earlier than what we were told...

The indian wrestler did his thing with the gator and after the show we finished our picture taking and left the village...We will not go back there again...To us it was a rip off...