EVERGLADES NATIONAL PARK - Not far from where the tram full of tourists glimpsed an alligator lurking among saw grasses, a guide dared them to wade knee deep into the swampy, dark water surrounding them.
"Is she serious? Are you going to go in?" Kathy Nubling asked her husband, Al, not budging. Deciding they were supposed to be adventurous, the California couple bared their feet and stepped into the water.
The Everglades has never been a glamorous vacation spot. Despite efforts to promote the wetland as an eco-tourism destination, the inhospitable scenery keeps many tourists at Florida's more popular beaches and theme parks.
As if mosquitoes and smothering humidity weren't enough to tarnish the park's image, decades of development and pollution have swallowed more than 5,000 square miles, half of the original wetlands. The changes wiped out some of the wildlife and surroundings that would be among the park's biggest attractions.
An $8.4-billion restoration project, now under way after years of planning, aims to reverse some of that damage. State officials hope the plan - billed as the world's largest environmental restoration project - will lure more tourists to discover the rare wilderness.
"People who live in Indiana will scrimp and save because they want to make sure they take their kids to see the Grand Canyon. I hope with this kind of investment, people in Indiana will scrimp and save so they can make sure their kids have seen the Everglades," Florida Department of Environmental Protection Secretary David Struhs said.
Everglades National Park is the largest national park east of the Rocky Mountains, covering 1.5-million acres. More than a million people visit its sawgrass prairies, mangrove shorelines and cypress forests each year, but that number is a fraction of the more than 75-million vacationers who came to Florida last year.
It doesn't help that Everglades National Park is recognized as the nation's most threatened. More than a dozen species are endangered, making it difficult for visitors to snap pictures of many of them, including the Florida panther, West Indian manatee and red-cockaded woodpecker. The panther remains the most elusive; researchers estimate only 75 roam the marshland.
While hunters started abusing the Everglades in the late 1800s, the worst disruptions started in the 1940s, when developers began carving the marshland with roads for subdivisions and canals to control flooding.
Tour guides recognize that many visitors understand little about the complicated ecosystem and spin tales that make it relevant, at least for Floridians.
As the tourists marveled at Kathy and Al Nubling and the few brave others who stepped into the muck, a tour guide reaches in and pulls up some slimy, dark algae called periphyton, which is eaten by fish and snails and serves as the base of the Everglades food chain. The algae supports more biodiversity than anywhere else in North America. The water supplies a region with 6-million people.
"The water that you're looking at is the water you used to brush your teeth and take a bath last night in South Florida," guide Shirley McBride tells them.
