There are so many pros to staying or traveling on tropical islands.  Ocean breezes, beaches, plenty of sunshine and a slower lifestyle.  There are also, for some of us, some cons that I will personally categorize as “creepy”.  Things that are creepy enough that if they disappeared I would never miss them.  I’m sure they’re important in the whole scheme of life and all, but – no.

The great thing for me this week was that I didn’t see ANY spiders.  I’m not saying there aren’t any, but I didn’t SEE any.  And as far as I’m concerned, that’s good enough.  To take their place however, were geckos.  “They won’t hurt you!”, he said. “They’ll run away from you” he said.  Didn’t matter, they seemed to be just where I wan’t expecting and they move fast.  Sure, they’ll run away from you IF they have a place to run.  What if they don’t?  What if they are confused like a squirrel and run at you?  This is serious stuff here folks!

Then there are iguanas.  HUGE iguanas.  We were told they are everywhere.  One store employee told us there was one on a shelf in their clothing store.  Well, yes, if you leave your door open, these kinds of things can sneak in!  Doug wanted so badly to see one that I told him we could go to the city cemetery where apparently they have an iguana wrangler pick up 40-50 every week.  I didn’t have to get out of the car – Doug could have all the fun with that he wanted.  However, we completely lucked out when one decided to run across from us on the beach to hide in a bunch of greenery.  Everyone suddenly gathered around this little piece of vegetation to take pics, but not me.  Pictures are just fine.  I watched as one young man tried to coax it out with leaves from said vegetation.  I was waiting for him to fall onto said iguana and give us a show.  No such luck however.

Other than that, no other creepy things, so this made me very happy.  On the way home we decided that you can’t be right next to the Florida Everglades and not ride an airboat to check out alligators.  How hard could this be?  We ride through the water and see gators from a distance.  We got our tickets and proceeded as instructed  to the animal demonstration.  I’m not sure what I expected, but was surprised to have to walk right beside alligators in cages.  Really big alligators.  REALLY, REALLY big alligators.  I don’t mind if I have a minute to prepare myself, but not crazy about looking down to either side of me and oh, there’s an alligator.  We go to the covered area with the other unsuspecting passengers and the guide begins to educate us about alligators. I can do lectures, so cool.  Until he reaches into a little tank behind him.

The two year old alligator was about a couple of feet long and he had it up front with him, so so far, so good.  Then he decided to walk among us to touch it.  I can do this – it’s not that big, right?  He’s holding it tightly so it’s not going to get me, right?  So, sitting next to Doug so he could protect me from this little gator, I actually touched it.  Me.  I touched a little gator.  Pretty impressive, huh?  Then he says something about snakes.

He’s kidding, right?  Snakes?  Why yes, they can even hang from trees.  Yay.  So he pulls out this red tailed boa and lets it hang around his neck so nonchalantly while he tells us all about boas and pythons, blah, blah, blah.  I’m hearing nothing because he’s put it on the ground to do whatever it’s going to do.  Then he picks it up and starts to take it around for people to touch.  I feel the panic begin and the need to run kicks in, but I can’t figure out how to do that gracefully, and here he comes towards us with this snake.  He does ask if people want to touch it and when we make eye contact, I’m pretty sure I gave him the wide-eyed, please don’t come near me look and gratefully he didn’t get too close.  If his goal was to put fear in the hearts of those getting ready to take the airboat ride, it worked.

Now, I should say I had a really good time on the airboat, and unfortunately did not see any alligators during our trip (a lot like a whale watch we did last year).  A little disappointing, but ok at the same time.  The idea of creepy things is enough.