United States travel - Robert Scheer's Blog

Tampa Bay Wildlife Safari

The giraffe’s enormous tongue gently plucked a green leaf from my outstretched hand. “Prehensile,” our guide called it. “And about 18-inches long, so it can wrap around branches and strip off leaves.” This giraffe, however, didn’t have to work so hard. She merely waited for truckloads of tourists to come feed her fresh lettuce. I patted her on the neck. It felt as solid as a redwood.

I was in a small group riding through the simulated Serengeti Plains at Busch Gardens Africa in Tampa Bay, Florida.

As we rode among the giraffes, elephants, zebras, rhinos and antelopes, I tried to imagine I was actually in Tanzania, but the roller coaster tracks, visible above the treetops, kept reminding me I was in an American theme park.

Hunting with a camera instead of a rifle, my goal was to “shoot” the famous Big Five African game animals: elephant, leopard, lion, rhinoceros and buffalo.

I discovered that Busch Gardens is a good place to see many, but not all of them. The park’s collection of rhinos is impressive, with five white and nine black ones.

Included in the admission price are unlimited rides on a miniature railway train, from which I saw ostriches, elands, wildebeests, impalas and gazelles, as well as water buffalo, but the 30-minute Serengeti Safari was an extra-cost option.

I figured it was worth US$33.99 to not only feed lettuce to a giraffe but also to give cantaloupe to an antelope.

A similar but less pricey giraffe experience can be found less than 8 kilometers away at the Lowry Park Zoo.

Their Safari Africa exhibit lets visitors feed giraffes with crackers purchased from a vending machine, and there were lots of children, parents and grandparents eager for the opportunity. “It’s a once in a lifetime experience,” a white-haired man enthused to me.

The zoo also lets visitors feed a rhino and an alligator, but only on weekends. Unluckily, I was there on a Thursday.

Still there was an impressive menagerie of animals to be seen, including species from Asia and Australia as well as Africa. I also met some interesting people.

I struck up a conversation with a woman who seemed fascinated by a family of sandhill cranes. One of North America’s largest birds, with a wingspan of about two meters, sandhills are on the list of endangered species.

“I used to eat them,” the woman said, “when I lived down by Lake Okeechobee.” She explained that her grandmother had cooked and served the birds about 50 years ago. I asked if they tasted like chicken. “Better!” she grinned.

I hadn’t seen any lions at Busch Gardens, and the ones at Lowry Park Zoo were napping in the early afternoon sun and didn’t look too photogenic, but I got close to some very impressive lions at Tampa’s Big Cat Rescue.

A non-profit, educational sanctuary, Big Cat Rescue is the home of more than 140 lions, tigers, leopards, cougars, bobcats and other large felines. Jeff, the young man who guided around the 45-acre site, told me some heartbreaking stories about the abused and abandoned cats being sheltered there.

Stretched out in the sunlight near the front of his cage was Sabre, a gorgeous 15-year-old black leopard. He had been “temporarily” left in 1995 by an owner who then moved and left no forwarding address.

Some animals had even more tragic histories. From a distance, Jeff pointed toward another leopard. “We shouldn’t go too close to Shaquille,” he said. “He hates men.” The former Las Vegas circus animal had refused to jump through a flaming hoop and was beaten nearly to death by a man.

Now mostly recovered, he purrs affectionately when female volunteers care for him.

I also saw Nikita, a lioness whose owner had her de-clawed and kept her chained in his basement. She had been seized by the DEA during a drug raid and has enjoyed living at Big Cat Rescue since 2001.

I later became less fond of Big Cat Rescue when I learned they feed live rabbits to some of their cats.

Being on safari in Tampa, Florida may not be as adventurous as really going to Africa, but it’s easier, safer and less costly.

For me, having recently passed the age-60 milestone, comfort and safety are travel priorities that have grown increasingly important.

Photos © Robert Scheer

Accommodations: Embassy Suites USF, 3705 Spectrum Blvd., is conveniently close to Busch Gardens and other attractions.

Dining: The historic Columbia Restaurant in Tampa’s Ybor City is renowned for its Spanish food and flamenco entertainment. Pelagia Trattoria at the Renaissance Tampa Hotel International Plaza serves outstanding modern Italian cuisine.

For More Information:
Busch Gardens Africa –www.buschgardens.com
Lowry Park Zoo – www.lowryparkzoo.com
Embassy Suites USF – www.embassysuitesusf.com
Columbia Restaurant – www.columbiarestaurant.com
Pelagia Trattoria – www.pelagiatrattoria.com

Update: I visited Tampa Bay, Florida in June, 2007 as a guest of the Tampa Bay Convention & Visitors Bureau and the Orlando/Orange County Convention & Visitors Bureau. The above article was published in January, 2008. Descriptions and prices may no longer be current.

Swimming With Dolphins in Orlando

Discovery Cove in Orlando, Florida, is an all-inclusive getaway that truly is a world all its own. Unlike so many theme parks where you have to deal with large crowds and long line-ups, Discovery Cove limits its attendance ensuring a more relaxing experience for its lucky visitors. Because I had registered for the Dolphin Swim, I was given a specific time to be at my appointed beach, and I had the rest of the day to take advantage of the other attractions.

I waded among amazing varieties of stingrays, one of which had a tail that was more than six feet long. I snorkeled around colorful angel fish, silly-looking groupers and too many other varieties to list. It was as if I were in an enormous aquarium.

Part of the all-inclusive admission included not only a delicious lunch of pesto salmon, stir fry veggies, red potato cubes and key lime pie, but also several very tasty varieties of Budweiser beer. Discovery Cove, after all, is part of the Anheuser-Busch family.

When it was finally time for my dolphin swim, I was provided with a swim vest that was like a sleeveless wet-suit, and listened carefully as my group was given instructions by a naturalist trainer. One by one, we were introduced to one of the Atlantic bottlenose dolphins. My dolphin, named Scarlet, didn’t look her age of 27. I later learned that she was the dominant female in the group. She didn’t seem to mind when I grabbed on to her dorsal fin and hung on as she raced into the deeper water. It was the ride of my life! But what happened next was even more amazing.

When we got back to the shallows, the trainer asked me to hold out my arms for Scarlet to lie on them. But a moment later she rolled over and gave me a big hug. Lynn, her trainer, said she had never seen that happen before. Scarlet must have really liked me!

The Discovery Cove experience is not cheap. A check of admission prices on their website in June, 2012 showed a per person range of between $229 and $359, depending on the date. That is for the package that includes the Dolphin Swim. It’s less without the 30-minute dolphin experience, but my swim with Scarlet was a memory I shall never forget.

I visited Discovery Cove on a media trip in the summer of 2007 as a guest of the Tampa Bay Convention & Visitors Bureau and the The Orlando/Orange County Convention & Visitors Bureau. On the same tour, I also went on an “African Safari.”

Haunted Hopi Pottery in Arizona

It’s an awesome feeling to spot a piece of broken pottery among the weeds, pick it up and realize it was made nearly 1,000 years ago. It’s even more awesome to realize how easy it would be to slip the matchbook-size potsherd in your pocket – and the powerful curse that could haunt you if you did!

I was in Homolovi Ruins State Park near Winslow, Arizona, trying to imagine what it was like before the ancient Hisat’sinom people (the ones archaeologists call Anasazi) moved up to the mesas, where we now know them as Hopi. The park opened in 1993, and it offers visitors the rare experience of touring an active archaeological dig. Scientists here, in consultation with the Hopi, are excavating ancient stone walls and studying broken pottery in order to understand the migration of Native Americans in the 1200s and 1300s. According to legend, the Creator instructed the First People to migrate across the continent until they found Maasaw, the Guardian Spirit of the Earth. They were directed to carve their clan symbols into the rocks wherever they went, and whenever they left a village to move to a new place, they were supposed to break their pottery.

At the Homolovi Visitor Center I had a long talk with Park Ranger and manager Karen Berggren, and she told me where to find several petroglyph sites, hidden within the 4,000 acre park. Etched into the sandstone rocks are numerous clan symbols: bear paw, snake, lizard and humanoid forms, as well as geometric patterns. We also saw a row of three Kokopellis – the hump-backed flute player believed to be a fertility symbol.

“Homolovi is still a very sacred place to the Hopi people,” Karen said. “They often come here to pray.” She told us that if we saw any feathers tied to a bush, or lying on the ground, we should respect these prayer offerings and leave them alone. We didn’t see any pahos, but it wasn’t hard to find broken pottery. In one area, near the north end of the park, you can hardly walk without stepping on pre-Columbian potsherds. I picked up a beige, triangular ceramic fragment and rubbed it gently, wondering who had made it. The day before, in the First Mesa village of Sichomovi, I had met Ethel. She’s a small woman, about 70 years old, who makes clay bowls – completely by hand. There are no pottery wheels in Hopi country. Ethel said she even makes the pigments she uses to paint traditional black and red geometric patterns on her pots. Could the ancient potsherd I found have been made by one of Ethel’s ancestors?

Cursed for Stealing Hopi Artifacts

I was momentarily tempted to keep the clay fragment, but I couldn’t help thinking about the amazing letter Karen had shown me, from a man who was mailing stolen potsherds back to the Visitor Center. He wrote, “I’m sorry I was ignorant and stupid … I should have known I was robbing the Hopi culture.” The man detailed how he was “haunted.” Three times each night, his bedroom door would open and shut by itself. He desperately hoped that returning the stolen artifacts would remove the “curse” that was causing him to feel so ashamed.

This was not an isolated case. Not only had Karen received several similar letters, but Rangers in two other parks said they regularly get rocks and pottery fragments mailed back by remorseful thieves with guilty consciences. Andy Pearce, a Ranger at Wupatki National Monument, gets two or three letters each year from people who were suffering from such “bad luck” that they had to mail back the artifacts they had pilfered. At the Grand Canyon Visitors Center, I read a letter from a woman who admitted that taking artifacts “does cause bad karma.” She confessed, “I’ve experienced bad managers at work … floods of epic proportion in my living room, many bad hair days … one lazy-bewildered boyfriend … [and] mental distress. A more detailed list should not be necessary. Just ask the Grand Canyon Poobah to take the curse off me now! No more plagues allowed. Sincerely, Sylvia.”

Arizona and U.S. laws call for fines of $250 to $150,000 and five years in prison for anyone caught stealing a piece of pottery or defacing rock art. But it may be easier to get past the human law officers than to avoid punishment from higher powers. Before the ancients moved away from villages such as Homolovi and Wupatki, they called upon the spirits of their dead ancestors to protect the sites. I didn’t want to risk offending any ghosts at Homolovi, so after admiring the little beige and black potsherd for a few minutes, I carefully set it back down on the ground.

I visited Homolovi State Park in 2000, on a road trip to Arizona that also included Sedona and the Grand Canyon. We stayed at the unique and historic La Posada hotel in nearby Winslow, AZ. This article was originally published in July, 2000.

BROWSE NATIVE AMERICAN TURQUOISE & SILVER JEWELRY FOR SALE

Monument Valley & Navajo Indian Reservation Tour

Sacred Canyons of Arizona

White House Ruin

The Four Corners area of the USA (where Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah meet) is rich with ancient cliff-dwellings, rock art, dramatic canyon vistas and native spirits. You can experience all these features in one place if you stop at Canyon de Chelly (pronounced d’SHAY) National Monument, near Chinle, Arizona.

The canyon is in the Navajo Nation, and the Diné people (as the Navajo call themselves) carefully control access. You can drive along the canyon rim and stop at eleven different outlook points, but visitors are only allowed down into the canyon if they’re accompanied by a Navajo guide – except for one place: the 2-1/2 mile trail to White House Ruin is open to the public. It’s about a two hour round-trip hike to the 12th century cliff-dwelling, wedged into a crevice in a 1000 foot cliff.

Perhaps the most spiritual place in the canyon is Spider Rock, and there’s an excellent view from an overlook at the end of the 16-mile South Rim Drive. Jutting 800 feet from the canyon floor, the red sandstone pillar is the legendary home of Holy Spider Woman, who taught the Navajo how to weave. It is said that Spider Woman takes naughty boys and girls to the top of the spire, and that the white specks you can see at the top of the rock are the bleached bones of children who did not obey their parents.

Local Native guides are readily available at the Visitors Center, and they’ll lead you on canyon hikes, horseback or four-wheel drive vehicle tours. We enjoyed a half-day group tour in an open-air, six-wheel drive vehicle from nearby Thunderbird Lodge. We splashed through the water at the bottom of the canyons and made numerous stops to see and learn about rock art, ruins, and Navajo farms.

At Antelope House Ruin there is a left-pointing swastika, painted on the sandstone above the pueblo houses. Hundreds of years before the Nazis corrupted this ancient symbol, it represented the Wheel of Life. On a high ledge to the left of the cliff dwellings is a stunning display of pictograph paintings: human images, a rainbow, concentric circles, zig-zag lines and the herd of antelope that gives the area its name. About a dozen local artists were selling their creations here, and I enjoyed chatting with Maxine, who displayed a beautiful variety of necklaces, earrings and fetish pendants. Other artists sold beadwork, carved kachina dolls, pottery and exquisitely woven Navajo rugs, displayed on blankets spread on flat sandstone rocks, shaded by a row of cottonwood trees.

It’s a pleasant, two-hour drive northwest from Canyon de Chelly to Navajo National Monument, the location of two of the most spectacular Native cliff dwellings in Arizona, but getting to the ruins from the parking lot is a major commitment. Keet Seel Ruin is only accessible by a primitive trail that requires an arduous, day-long trek. Less strenuous, although still rough going, is the five to six-hour round trip hike to Betatakin Ruin. We contented ourselves with a view of Betatakin from the opposite edge of the canyon, an easy ten or fifteen-minute stroll to a viewing platform.

Immediately behind the visitors center is a Navajo sweatlodge, a tiny mud-covered, dome-shaped hogan, fashioned around a framework of logs. Beyond it, a paved pathway meanders across the desert landscape. You walk past scrubby sage bushes and old, twisted juniper trees, and it’s not uncommon to see hawks or turkey vultures soaring overhead. At the overlook, my partner and I were startled by a sudden whoosh as two ravens swooped in front of our faces. We could clearly hear the whistle of wind on their wings as they passed within inches of us, at the canyon’s edge. The 135-room Betatakin village, built in an alcove with a 450-foot high arched ceiling, was just barely visible. You’ll need binoculars to make out any details, as the pueblo walls were constructed from the same mocha-colored sandstone as the cliff in which they are sheltered.

It was a sunny Sunday afternoon in early April, and we were lucky to have the place all to ourselves. There was no traffic noise – the main highway is ten miles away – and the silence was profound. Maybe there are powerful spirits living in the canyon, or maybe we were simply able to attune ourselves to the natural energy, but – whatever the reason – it felt very sacred. The Navajo have a phrase, “walk in beauty”, which means to be in harmony with nature. Betatakin and Canyon de Chelly are two of those rare places where you can escape from the 21st century and understand what it feels like to walk in beauty, if only for a few moments.

This column was originally published in June, 2000.

Private Tour of Five National Monuments in Arizona from Sedona