Wings of the Sunshine State
Lights of cars driving in the opposite direction are making one fire line in my tired eyes. It's just before the midnight and I am crossing the Sunshine Skyway Bridge on the way from Tampa to Bradenton. In my mind I see pictures of rich American retirees during their morning jogging, luxurious hotels on the shore or the face of the thoroughgoing ginger-haired detective driving a black Hammer. Florida. The state of the dazzling luxury and also the state of mysterious swamps fullof alligators and water fowl.
Russian roulette
It is early in the morning, I am driving on the “seventy five” to the south and big rain drops join in tiny creeks on my wind shield. I can hardly see. Wipers are able to fight the water for a moment and I can read words on a plate of the car driving in front of me - Florida-Sunshine state. It is like a bad joke in this weather. It is early December and there should be just few rainfalls in this period of year. However, the weather does what it wants. A lady in a ranger uniform watches me suspiciously at the gate to the state park Myakka River. What is he doing here so early in this weather? I can understand her. I do not feel like a completely normal person at that moment. The park is silent and there is a strange gloominess among the trees. The rain stops. I drive slowly along an asphalt road across the park. Six does of the Virginia deer stand few meters from the road. I start cursing in my mind, because my camera is still in trunk of the car. I shift the reverse gear and slowly back the car from their sight. The does are deeper in the forest when I get back, but they let me shoot some pictures before they completely disappear.
The Myakka River State Park is one of the oldest and biggest state parks in Florida. It is possible to see almost unharmed nature there. Some 57 square miles of the park offer swaps, prairies, and a form of forest typical for the area. The park has been adjusted for visitors, who can freely walk on hiking paths, borrow a kayak, camp, or fish. I was visiting the Upper Myakka Lake for several days and I still could not get the right light. Last afternoon before my departure from Florida I was sitting on the bank of the lake near a wooden observation point and rather unhappily watched three drunken fishermen, who were shooing all the water fowl in near distance. Only black vultures did not mind.
Actually, I was spotting them in huge numbers every day there. They waited for fish thrown out by fishermen. They often came to me very close in moments I lied motionless while waiting for a picture. It is a strange feeling when one turns around and several black birds sit in a close proximity. Fortunately, the fishermen became tired of fishing or they run out of beer in the evening and they got in their kayaks and went away. Suddenly there was silence everywhere. Alligators started to show their heads above the water level, two wood storks came and a little blue heron tried to hunt something just few meters from the lake shore. An excitement in the flock of vultures disturbed the calmness of the evening. They started to run and fly to one spot. At first I did not know what happened and then I found a triangle alligator head in the water. It started to slowly move to the shore. The birds were pulling tree branches from the water in front of the alligator just like they would clean its way. Assisted by the vultures the rather big alligator came to the shore and lied on a sandy beach. The vultures sat in a circle around its head and their behaviour then resembled a game popular among Russian army officers – the Russian roulette. I saw birds one after another running close to alligator's teeth crouched in a funny posture. It looked like they wanted to become the best fop in front of the flock. The alligator became tired of that and vanished in the river without attacking any bird. The sun showed up below the clouds on the horizon just before the sunset and I got my light and an interesting moment the nature usually saves only for itself.
World of different worlds
Signs on billboards along the motorway before Orlando call their invitations into faces of drivers passing by. Are you bored by your world full of usual problems? Here are worlds, where you can (at least for a moment) forget your problems. The world of the Mickey Mouse, the world of film studios, the world of African pseudo-savannah, the sea world, the world... It is hard to resist that, because we are in America. Everything is “great”. So, why not to visit one of these artificial worlds? They are perfectly interconnected. They are genial machines producing money. Do you want to visit the Sea World? Why not? BUT! We have a great offer for you, which will make it possible for you to visit two utterly unforgettable parks. ...and they got you. So, I also could not resist this heady call of the big world of entertainment and choose one of the parks. Actually, it was two parks. The second one was recommended to me and one just cannot resist a bloody advantageous package. I was supposed to be at the site at eight a.m. to be “checked in” and let in the vortex of the most beautiful entertainment. I chose the Discovery Cove, which admits only 1,000 visitors a day. It is only a fracture compared with the Sea World. There is a smiling employee wearing a uniform at every five meters of the park, a buffet breakfast and here you are in the paradise. Several artificial lagoons create an image of tropical islands somewhere on the equator; however, one cannot choose the weather. It is raining and the temperature is pretty far from the equator. I am trying to put on a neoprene just to hear a short briefing to be ready for meeting dolphins. The swimming with dolphins is one of features offered by the Discovery Cove. I enter the lagoon with ice-cold water with mixed feelings of a person opposing shows with animals. Everything negative disappears in the moment I touch this amazing creature. I feel euphoria of a small boy in a toy shop. It might not be right to hold these intelligent creatures in captivity to bring luck and joy when we do not know what they feel. However, it is still better than use them as carriers of magnetic mines blowing up ships.
I am pretty cold after leaving the dolphin pool. Fortunately, the sun is shining through clouds. I enter the “tropical river” and I am pretty amazed – it is heated. I float with the river to a waterfall. It is only necessary to swim below the waterfall to enter a place of aviaries full of exotic birds. I have a cup with fruit in my hand and different birds of shining colours on my shoulders and head asking for fruit before I get dry. I am sitting on a ground. I am satisfied and feel tiny feet of the birds walking on me.
I would stay the whole day in the aviary, but there is the second ticket left. Although all different guides advise to book your ticket up to several weeks in advance, the parking lot in front of the Sea World is only half-full at 3 p.m. Maybe the crisis hit the park, too. The park offers a giant water slide, a tower you fall from in a free fall, a pirate ship, a polar express, an aquarium with sharks, an orca show... It is a pall-mall of everything showing at least something in common with the world of the sea. I am fed up by a one and half tour. I just clean mustard from the McDonald's from my lips making sure nobody sees me and leave the piece of the American dream with a relief.
Bird Paradise
Snowy egret
People interested in birds come to Florida. You do not have to travel to inhospitable parts of the world to see your dreamy fledgling while sitting twisted somewhere in a cover. In Florida you just go to the beach, lie on a deck-chair, sunbathe and have some bird “beachboys” turn themselves. More demanding people can wait for the right light and take pictures of nesting egrets in a perfectly treated park in the middle of the town of Venice. It is a great place if... You do not walk on the beach in a winter jacket bended in a protection against the cold wind just like the only snowy egret, which accompanies you. The same might happen also in Venice especially when you visit the town in times the egrets do not want to nest. I have to admit I registered one small piece of success. There were two egrets and I spotted also a small alligator, which did not like my presence and immediately disappeared. I decided to overcome the adversity and went to Fort Mayers to visit the J.N.Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge on the island of Sanibel one sunny morning. The day was beautiful and I was close to Fort Mayers after a three-hour drive. Cosy quarters full of luxurious villas led me to a bridge connecting the mainland with the Sanibel Island. I paid the toll and entered the bridge. Suddenly I heard a strange bang. It was a speed bump I thought. I learned it was not a speed bump after few meters. It was a flat tire. I was not courageous enough to stop on the bridge and the tire was... I would say “completely damaged”... at its end. I called the assistance service of the car rental company and passionately discussed with an answering machine for several minutes. I was finally put through to the operator. He asked me for setting my location. “I am on the bridge from Fort Mayers to the Sanibel Island.“ “Yes. Thank you. What is the name of the bridge?“ “I do not know, but it is the only bridge in the area!“ “Yes. Thank you and what is the name of the bridge?“ The conversation continued for several minutes and finally I could not stand it and changed the flat tire for a spare one. Unfortunately, the new tire was only a limited-use one and I had to go to the nearest car rental, which was at the airport behind Fort Mayers. They changed my car for a new one after filling some forms. I came to the island only tens of minutes before the sunset. I stopped near a lagoon, where several kinds of birds form a mob in the evening. I placed my tripod next to a guy with his camera equipment ready. He blinked his eye at me just like we were part of some conspiracy and pointed at flock of pink spoonbills. “Every evening they take off altogether!” he said and hit his neck several times. I could see the picture in my mind. The flying flock of pink spoonbills and the dark violet sky behind them! However, the spoonbills had another opinion. There was almost no light and the spoonbills did not want to take off. We both were hitting places on our bodies not protected by clothes. It was almost dark. I was only trying to repel the blood-sucking insect. The first big rain drops forced me to go to my car and I had only a few-hour drive in rain back to Bradenton ahead of me. So, it was a rain in the bird paradise.
Willet
