water - today featuring an audience of all other campers in the area and a
supporting cast of biting ants - lovely. The rude and inefficient staff in Dunkin'
Donuts caused our second delay. DDs are the rivals of Krispy Kremes, and
are not a patch on them for doughnuts - or service! Luckily we went in for
bagels rather than doughnuts!
The weather was again very sunny but also increasingly humid as we
headed south towards Naples – a very appropriate Mediterranean climate in
fact. Naples was not as picturesque as its Italian namesake, though to be fair
we only visited two Wal-Greens (like Boots) and a Wal-Mart (like ASDA...sort
of) in a bid to get our digital photographs downloaded. Not exactly the tourist
view of the town. And then we finally reached the Everglades National Park,
our sixth national park.
Our first glimpse of the Everglades was spent in the Gulf Coast
Entrance visitor centre, picking up maps and a listing of events. Then we left
the park and headed to our camp on Chokoloskee Island. Beautifully named,
but a little run down - at least judging by the campsite. Still, our spot was near
the ocean (in fact nearly everywhere we visited from now on to the end of our
travels was near ocean), the site was relatively clean, and the staff was
friendly. Most importantly we had hookup - air-con having replaced food as
our primary desire (at least until dinner time).
An hour or so later we headed out for dinner at Joanie's Blue Crab Café. This
was another Lonely Planet recommendation, as with many restaurants we
visited. The only difference from the others was that we never actually found
this restaurant, despite knowing exactly where it was.