Wild Venice Of The Swamps

South Florida

Fort Lauderdale is called the Venice of America, but before anyone starts gloating over that, let me say that there are over a dozen cities around the world known as the “Venice of Somewhere”. Venice of the North alone can refer to any of these cities: Amsterdam, Birmingham, Borås, Bornholm, Bruges, Copenhagen, Giethoorn, Haapsalu (and if you know where that is, you should be on a game show), Hamburg, Manchester, Maryhill, St. Petersburg, Stockholm, Trondheim or Wroclaw. And let’s not forget Bangkok, Venice of the East, or Recife, Venice of Brazil (a real stretch). Seriously, shouldn’t Venice be getting royalties from all these “sister” cities?

At least Fort Lauderdale boasts 300 miles of waterways and canals, so I guess the moniker is deserved. But canals are not the only thing that Fort Lauderdale has in common with Venice: the other is decadence. The Carnival of Venice was so decadent that over the centuries numerous laws were enacted to restrict celebrations, including a ban on the wearing of masks, which protected the wearer’s identity while engaging in promiscuous activities. Fort Lauderdale, on the other hand, is still known as the spring break capital of America even though the number of spring breakers is now nowhere near the 350k that once swarmed the city.

Spring break is still a few weeks away, but I did see wild things down there. The weather was horrible on the first day, so we chose to go to the Everglades and ended up doing something shamelessly touristy: taking an airboat ride in search of alligators. I was warned that they can jump, but figured that the chances of an alligator sprinting out of the water and landing on the airboat to make a meal out of bony me were pretty slim. I did see a couple alligators and they were lounging so still that you'd think they were made of stone. To be honest, I was more afraid of some campers I saw there: wearing camouflage clothing and carrying machetes, I wasn’t sure if they were hunting for local delicacies such as gator tails and frog legs, auditioning for the movie “Machete” or going to serial killer training camp. Anyway, if I were forced to choose between the alligators and the camouflaged macheted campers, I’d take the former. At least I know what they’re about.