Day 3

Yesterday was an amazing day filled with a lot of hard work, but it payed off. We met at the Visitor's Center again and took another 45 minute drive back to Flamingo. We continued to work in the same area as we did on Monday, eradicating the Lead Tree. At lunch we went to the Marina in hopes of seeing some crocodiles. As we sat down to make our sandwiches, one of the people in our group saw one. We also had an interesting experience with the seagulls at lunch. I have been to the Everglades before and had given a warning to the group about the aggressiveness of the birds here, but I don't think people expected what happened next. When we sat down after seeing the crocodile, we started have issues with the seagulls flying a little close to our heads. After a couple minutes of this, they began attempting to land on our table and heads to steal the food we had.

After the lunch fiasco, we headed out to a new location in Flamingo. Our afternoon task was the same but we were in a entirely different atmosphere. We were working on a trail that was blazed just a few days earlier, and the risk of running into snakes was a lot greater. As part of our group continued to pull and cut the Lead Trees, the other part blazed a trail down to the Florida Bay. The view was amazing and the fact that we were probably the only people ever in that exact location was just crazy. As we finished up our work and headed out of the Everglades we stopped at yet another Visitor's Center overlooking the Florida Bay. We decided to take a walk down Mahogany Trail. After the walk down the trail, we had to say our good-byes to our guides. Most of us were near tears as we gave everyone hugs and exchanged names, number and/or e-mails. We all new we were lucky to have met and learned from such amazing people. The rest of the night was spent in the hostel relaxing and trying to stay warm as it has been unusually cold here. I know we are all interested in what our work on Thursday and Friday of this week will be and I'm sure we are all looking forward to making new friends. Now off to Miami for the day.....