VOA常速英语:自然是佛罗里达大沼泽地的主角

When national parks traveler Mikah Meyer visited Everglades National Park,he says he got a good idea what’s southern Florida look like before it was developed.

“Everglades is really fascinating because it’s this huge section of land when compared to a lot of national parks.I mean it takes up like, the entire southwestern corner of Florida.Essentially before human interaction, everything south of Orlando looked like the Everglades.”

On the raised boardwalk of the Anhinga Trail, Mikah had unparalleled views of what’s called “the River of Grass.”

“It’s a marshland with a bunch of trees, and so there’s all these birds everywhere that make it their home.We saw Terrapin turtles; there’s gators, you know, sunning on the banks.Easily the most amount of wildlife I’ve seen in one place at one time.”

Another highlight for Mikah and his travel companion Andy Waldron was wading through knee-deep water and mud, on a hike called a slough slog.

“It sounds gross, it sounds horrible, but it was one of the most fun things I’ve done at a national park yet.You start out, you slog through the mud.”

“How is it, Andy?”“Muddy.”

“And then eventually you get to the water.It feels like you’re on another planet, like you’re in an episode of Star Trek.”

In another part of the park, they had an exhilarating ride to the famous southern Florida wetlands on an airboat,courtesy of his guide Ozzie, from Everglades Nature Tours.

“I think what made this so special is that our guide has grown up in this area and he knew it like the back of his hands.”

“Hey, mama gator, how you doing, ooh, she ain’t happy.”

“So he took us out on this airboat into the middle of, they call it the River of Grass.And right away he takes us to the spot that he knows about where there’s always a mama gator.Which basically she is warning us like ‘my babies are here, don’t mess with me or I’m gonna get really angry!’And then sure enough, we look around and we saw like eight different baby alligators.”

Ozzie also showed Mikah and Andy some of the area’s plant life.

“Has all the nutrients you need to survive out here, you can’t live on it, but you can survive on it.”

“He shows us they call it sawgrass because if you pull your arm against it one way it won’t hurt you at all,but if you go the other way it’ll cut your skin because it’s got like little saw ridges on it.”

“My favorite truth that we used it for was to cut the umbilical cords on the babies.”

Mikah, who’s on a mission to visit all of the more than 400 sites within the National Park Service,says his adventure on a boat tour at the edge of the Everglades, captured the wonder of his wetlands experience.

“We had heard that oftentimes you can see dolphins on this tour and it delivered! It was so cool.It’s such a rare treat to see something in the wild and not in a zoo or not on TV or not in a National Geographic magazine.This was real, you know it was real life.”

Julie Taboh, VOA news, Washington.