Jungle Larrys African Safari revisited

This area was one of the focal points of Caribbean Gardens, and Larry called it the "Amazon", a natural, but smelly sulfur lake surrounded by a 4 ft. chain link fence. It was inhabited by Spider Monkeys on the island, which you rowed a boat out to feed, a South American Tapir named Percy, two Galapagos tortoises, assorted ducks and alligators. Each afternoon in the winter Larry would listen to the weather report from Sanibel Island, and if it was going to go down to 50 we had to go get the Galapagos tortoises and bring them into the show building which was heated for the Chimpanzees. When you finally located them, they were usually buried in mud right at the waters edge. You had to drag 350 lbs of struggling, sucked in the mud tortoises, with no natural handles, except under the shell, where it was guaranteed you finger would get smashed by their "armor" encased legs, up to an area of the fence where the Datsun could be backed up. You then lifted those struggling lugs up on the fence and balanced them, with your finger now lacking all feeling, and lifted them into the bed of the pickup for transport to heated accomodations, all the while being supervised by Percy. The next morning they had to be but back out before the park open. An absolute "fantasy land" for aspiring Zoologists, of which the modern Disney Animal Park pales by comparison. I found 10 white round things one day while looking for the Galap's. Larry said, "I am going to show you something wonderful." He instructed me to put them in a coffee can, which we filled with damp sand, and the told me to put them on my shelf with a heat lamp, and to dampen the soil a bit each day. 10 day's later I awoke to scratching in the can, and looked in side to see 9 baby soft shelled turtles, which Larry helped me release into the Amazon later that day. Jungle Larry is one of those people who are really missed when they are gone