Florida Trail: Overseas Heritage Trail Day 6
January 11, 2022
Mile: 82.6 to 103.0 (20.4 miles)
Start: Kon Tiki Resort, Islamorada, FL
Finish: Key Largo Kampground, Key Largo, FL
- Animals seen today: peacocks, iguanas, feral cats
- Keys crossed today: Upper Matecumbe, Windley, Plantation Key and Key Largo
We trekked out of the Kon Tiki Resort as a stiff breeze picked up, impending signs of a storm on its way down to the Keys. The rattan hair of the tiki man outside the hotel blew voluptuously and full of volume and it was clear that he’s been using conditioner. The tiki man’s gorgeous locks reminded us of full-maned celebrities like 1990s supermodel Fabio and modern day Donald Trump. We could only dream that one day our hiker hair could be that flowy and voluminous. The stuff you think about while hiking…
The hike today was along a bike path and on the side of a busy highway. As we neared the final and largest island on our trip, bustling Key Largo, there were more businesses and houses instead of wild ocean views and tangles of mangrove forest. It wasn’t long before our bellies rumbled with hunger and we swung into Mangrove Mike’s diner. It was nice in the built up Keys that if you were hungry you didn’t have to wait too long to find a restaurant. We certainly weren’t going to enjoy the privilege of amenities in the wilds of the Everglades next week so we might as well enjoy them while we could.
The trail highlights today included Bass Pro Shops which was geared towards older fishermen and not so much fisherwomen (or women in general). I was in the market for another pair of shorts but they were not to be found here so we continued on. We saw a lobster pot Christmas tree, flamingo mailboxes, iguanas and giant conch shells. Purple Bougainvillea and coconut palms lined the trail and so to pass the time we sang the lovely tune:
“I’ve got a lovely bunch of coconuts
Deedle dee dee
There they are all standing in a row
Bum bum bum
Big ones, small ones, some as big as your head!
Um…what comes next?
I don’t know!”
The trail led back and forth across busy Highway 1 as the bike path disappeared on one side of traffic and reappeared after a bridge or narrow spot back on the opposite side of the road. It felt like every 20 minutes we were playing Frogger to cross the highway which was getting kind of old. At one point we crossed over a drawbridge connecting the islands which was cool but kind of scary since the road shoulder was non-existent. We thought thin and squished up against the concrete barrier, dangling our backpacks over the ocean below as nonstop car traffic zoomed over the slick metal grate of the drawbridge. The bridge shook underneath our feet to the point where it jarred our insides a bit and made our voices shake when we yelled, kind of like the same effect you get when you yell into a fan. Except if you didn’t steady yourself and accidentally moved a couple inches into traffic you’d find yourself smashed by a RV from New Jersey with tire tracks on your head.
As we were nearing the breaking point of the drawbridge, we noticed a fast-moving catamaran skirting along the channel towards the drawbridge. We yelled with delight and screamed at each other to hike as fast as we could because we didn’t want to get stuck on the bridge on foot as it was raising up to let the tall-masted boat through. That would be way too crazy and we’d end up being shark food falling in between the bridge platforms!
We ran to the other side just as the bridge traffic light started turning yellow and red to stop car traffic. With this being the Florida Keys, the cars didn’t stop even though the drawbridge’s red light on either side of the bridge was on and the red and white striped gates were coming down. We rushed to the widened road shoulder below the bridge and hugging the guard rail we lingered watching the drawbridge rise. A couple of lead foot drivers almost took out the warning gates as they slammed on their brakes but then steel barriers rose up from the bridge to prevent vehicles from going forward and traffic halted. The steel bridge platforms rose slowly, letting the gorgeous catamaran boat through. Handfuls of people jumped out of their cars to pose with the drawbridge and watch it go up just like we were. We laughed at the lady who pushed her way through the crowd to pose for an interesting selfie with the bridge. Some people are ridiculous.
Islamorada, or the Village of Islands as their town slogan calls it, was the next of the major islands on the Florida Keys. The islands are called “keys” which comes from the Spanish word cayo meaning “little island.” And since the Spaniards were the first European settlers down here, the word “key” referring to the little islands stuck as more Europeans immigrated to the Caribbean. The Calusa and Tequesta tribes used the islands for resources like timber, fishing, food and collecting natural materials for building.
At the Islamorada Visitor’s Center we learned how the immediate area surrounding the Keys was a very shallow reef filled with hundreds of shipwrecks. We’d seen some large modern day boats already shipwrecked on reefs by those unfamiliar with navigating in the shallows or those too drunk or even running from the US Drug Enforcement Agency. Yesterday we snorkeled in Alligator Reef which is named after the USS Alligator, an anti-slavery and anti-piracy patrol ship that wrecked in the shoals off the Florida Keys in 1821. On the depth charts posted on the wall, I also saw the name of a drug running ship that wrecked on the same reef. A restaurant nearby was called “The Square Grouper” in reference to the rectangular bales of cocaine or marijuana that local fishermen sometimes hook on their line after a drug boat tosses their cargo overboard to avoid getting caught by the Coast Guard and doing prison time. So much interesting history here!
Not far off the shallow seas on the depth charts, the reef disappeared into a steep abyss where the depth quickly fell off to 800, 1000, 1500 feet. It was crazy to think about how extreme these little islands were rising out of the Atlantic abyss to such shallow depths and were surrounded by hundreds of shipwrecks, each with its own unique history. The islands are made entirely of fossilized coral which you can normally check out at Windley Key Fossil Reef Geological State Park. However, due to Covid we’re guessing, the park was closed and locked so we couldn’t check out the fossilized reefs.
After a bathroom break and water refill at the Visitor’s Center, we headed down a side road where the trail shimmied past enormous mansions each stretching for what seemed like 2 blocks long. Some of the mansions were set far back from the road, their jungle driveways looking foreboding, dark and frankly like something out of Jurassic Park. Instead of feral Florida Keys chickens out here in the richie rich neighborhoods, flocks of peacocks strutted across the road. The hens clustered together underneath the coconut palms whereas the male kept a close eye on us. An artist lady nearby chatted with us about how some rich guy used to own a couple of peacocks but after he died, his estate went to shambles and the peacocks ran wild. Now they’ve reproduced and small flocks haunt the neighborhoods. At least they don’t cock-doodle-do at 4am!
Soon we came across a Key Lime Pie joint called “The Blonde Giraffe” where we swung in to grab a delicious slice of tart, creamy meringue-topped pie and iced key lime juice. Of course we wanted to take a little afternoon break and the shaded trees, tables and music made it a perfect place for a snack and rest break. Shannon took the rest stop part very literally and disappeared for 20 minutes. I started wondering why he was taking so long in the bathroom when I searched around the yard and saw him passed out in an Adirondack chair underneath a shade tree. What a trickster! He was snoozing hard and I didn’t want to wake the sleeping beauty so I let him sleep.
We hiked along a bike path and sidewalk as the sun set and stopped at a seafood restaurant for dinner since it was right there next to the trail. We chowed down on shrimp salads and then headed another couple of miles to the Key Largo Kampground where we’d be tenting for the evening. On our way to the campground we passed a couple of police cars pulling over a guy on a bike and we gave them a wide berth, praying that we wouldn’t get harassed by them. The cops let us be and we turned down the side road to the campground. Our headlamps caught the yellow eyes of something medium-sized scurrying in the forest. We guessed it was maybe a raccoon until we saw about a dozen other sets of eyes as we continued on down the road. The golden eyes belonged to heaps of feral cats lurking in the woods, dashing across the road and meowing softly. As a cat lady in training (haha just kidding), it was my dream come true being surrounded by cats!
We checked into the quiet campground where we settled in against a fence on rocky pea gravel, our tent the odd one out surrounded by all of the pimped out RVs and fancy trailers. Wild cats roamed the camp as well and we saw several digging in trash and even standing in someone’s charcoal grill either looking for scraps or using it as a litter box. As I was leaving the bathroom after brushing my teeth, I saw a sign posted from the campground owners asking whoever was putting out poisoned cat food that killed 4 of the feral cats to stop. I couldn’t believe that someone would poison cats but then again if there were feral cats using my grill as a litter box while paying $100/night to park my RV here and the owners weren’t doing anything about the problem, I guess I could see someone taking it into their own hands.
We tucked into our tent as the rain started to pour down. Hopefully we wouldn’t have any feral cats peeing on our tent tonight and that the rain would keep them away as we slept.
