Louisiana

Alright, so the primary reason for my trip to the States is to soak up the music out here. Yes, I’m perfectly aware that I could have saved a little and gone to Glastonbury, but frankly the idea of camping out in a field with thousands of party-goers sounds like Hell on Earth to me. I’m quite happy chasing a more traditional, more intimate range of older styles out here in the States. That’s why I’ve shelled out on a couple of jazz-themed events this afternoon. But before that, there’s one other major reason I decided to kick off my American adventure in Louisiana. The Bayou.

I’ve got a thing for swamps. I spent weeks of my childhood clomping around the misty reedbeds of Stodmarsh in search of bitterns and marsh harriers, while anybody else my age with half a brain was honing their social skills at the park or on the pitch. The Easter holidays required a ritual voyage to Doñana National Park, the ‘Mother of the Marshes’, which became something of a Mecca of mine. So to come to Louisiana and not pay a visit to the Bayou would be foolishness in the extreme.

Of course, it isn’t all that easy to get into the Bayou proper without a boat, or a car for that matter. Fortunately there are a lot of offers on the table to take you out of New Orleans and into the swamps. I threw in my lot with Cajun Encounters – it looked to be far and away the best one going.

The bus picked me up from outside the hotel shortly after eight, giving me plenty of time to wolf down breakfast. The driver, though not a tour guide himself, did a brilliant job pointing out the sights as he took us through the residential districts of New Orleans and out into the wilds of Slidell. The devastation of Hurricane Katrina is remarkably apparent, even twenty years on: together with the hulking wrecks of houses and ships, the skeleton of New Orleans’ only amusement park can still be seen arching above the trees, while the bizarre Fisherman’s Castle on the edge of Lake Pontchartrain remains the only building to have survived the floodwaters intact.

The tour begins beyond sleepy Slidell on the bank of an inlet of the Pearl River, where the swamp-folk came pearl fishing many years ago. The six of us in my boat were assigned the formidable Captain Zander, a former warehouse packer and a true Cajun to boot. To say we drew the winning ticket would be an understatement. As well as being a no-nonsense authority on the Bayou, he seems to know just about everybody out on the Pearl River – including Cindy, one of the biggest gators in the swamp.

You’d be surprised how quickly you get used to the presence of the alligators. I must have counted around forty by the end of the outing, from amber-skinned yearlings to hulking, black-scuted beasts, visible only by the unmistakeable silhouette of their snouts just above the water. Before you know it, you feel as though they’re just part of the scenery!

When I was a kid I had a picture book that listed the American Alligator as endangered – which is true, as back in the 90s it was facing the very real danger of extirpation. Since then, however, the environmentalists have stepped in to throw the spirit of the Bayou a lifeline, and they have returned in force: more than a million can now be found in the Louisiana swamps alone.

Summer is one of the best times to see Louisiana’s gators, but the heavy foliage can make it harder to see the other denizens of the Bayou. All the same, over two hours I clocked wood ducks, whistling ducks, a pair of high-flying anhingas, several ospreys, green, yellow-crowned and black-crowned night herons, roseate spoonbills, cattle and great egrets, a single great blue heron and, in one of the deeper inlets of the Pearl River, a family of raccoons – a real American experience!

It really was quite something to drift along the snaking rivulets that cut through the Bayou, shielded from the merciless Southern Sun by the trailing beards of Spanish moss hanging from the cypress trees – named neither for their origin or their species (being neither Spanish nor a type of moss) but for their resemblance to the long grey beards of the first Spanish explorers to pass through these swamps hundreds of years ago. I wonder if Cabeza de Vaca and his brave company passed through here on their odyssey?

Back in New Orleans, I grabbed some lunch at Mr Ed’s Oyster Bar, following a tip-off from my Uber driver. It’s easy to shell out on your first meal in another country when you don’t know how things work, and I ended up with a starter that could have fed three as well as a main and a drink – before factoring in the inevitable 20% tip expected in the States and, of course, the inescapable taxes. That said, one cannot come to New Orleans and not try the food, and I have to admit the crawfish étouffée has shot up into the top ten foods I’ve ever tried. It was absolutely sensational. Didn’t feel brave enough for the oysters just yet, but maybe next time!

When I came back to the hostel, it was to find that Room 302 was being taken in hand: three Mexican labourers were hard at work uninstalling the ceiling tiles to address the leaking air-con unit, which meant I had to linger in the lobby until they were finished.

I had the shock of my life after they left, when I returned to the room to find my locker open and all the contents removed, with the exception of two shot glasses from Prague (a gift for a friend). Clothes, camera, the cash my students gave me as a leaving gift – all gone. In a blind panic I took the stairs at a run to find the receptionist and let them know what had happened… only to get a knowing smile and a ‘forgive me’ gesture.

Turns out they’d moved all my belongings into a new room while the works were being done and hadn’t found me yet to tell me.

Crisis averted – at the expense of a couple of years off my life! I’m not generally that fussed when it comes to losing things on my adventures – one less thing to carry and all that – but as this is my first time in the States, I’d rather be prepared, not to mention have enough clothes to wear for the next few weeks! BB x

In the Southlands there’s a city / way down on the river / where the women are very pretty / and all the men deliver.

The Princess and the Frog

Two things hit you right away when you step out of the car and into New Orleans: the heat and the smell. Both are overpowering. The heat gets under your clothes and into your skin in seconds, as though you’re sliding into a sauna. The smell hits you like a wave: a heady mix of diesel, sugar and, above all else, weed. I’ve never been anywhere quite like it.

After the city complex that is Dallas/Fort Worth International, New Orleans’ Louis Armstrong Airport felt much cosier – insofar as Americans do “cosy” when it comes to buildings. The lack of passport control caught me off guard, but then, it was only on an interstate flight. I didn’t get a stamp for the passport, which is a little annoying – it would have looked nice next to all the European stamps (a tiny compensation for Brexit).

I took an Uber into town, it being a Sunday and me having no idea where the bus set out from. Every American I’ve ever spoken to has only had bad things to say about their public transport, and besides, I figured an Uber would at least give me a local to talk to en route. My driver Calvinisha was a very charming New Orleans girl who was only too keen to point me in the direction of a number of food joints, namely Mr. Ed’s Oyster Bar. I’ve added it to the list. She also added that I’d ‘just missed out on the swinger festival’. I didn’t ask her to clarify whether she meant that in the musical or sexual sense. In New Orleans, it could easily have been either.

I checked into my hostel on 1028 Canal Street and set out for a wander, very conscious that I needed an early night to avoid any jet-lag on my first couple of days. My room was empty but for a steady drip from a leak in the ceiling and a disembodied voice coming from behind one of the curtains: a British guy clearly playing some kind of MMORPG, telling his friend to “use black sword”, “send in a fire mage” and other strange and rather bizarre commands. Leaving him to his world of make-believe, I locked my things away and set out for a stroll.

It’s hard to describe my first thoughts of New Orleans and at the same time do the city justice. It is certainly a culture shock for a European country boy like me. Skyscrapers that dwarf most of London’s tallest buildings. Shops that look like El Rocío homes openly advertising voodoo, weed and “barely legal” strippers. At first glance, New Orleans is everything you might expect to hear about in 20th century Soviet propaganda about America: casual, sleazy, decadent. But when it’s 38°C out there and the humidity is over 70%, can you blame them?

It feels like this town ought to operate on a Spanish-style siesta timetable – and yet, even in the hottest part of the day, folk are still wandering the streets. You have to hand it to the pioneers and their descendants. Louisiana heat is not to be trifled with.

For me, this whole American adventure is kind of a test. I think one of the subconscious reasons I’ve never really thought about going to the States is because of my languages. Hear me out. I’m not the best at striking up a conversation with a total stranger, in a shop or bar or anywhere else – unless it’s in another language. For whatever reason, I’m a lot bolder in my dealings with strangers when it’s in Spanish or even French. I honestly believe that it’s a confidence trick – you’re focusing so much on getting the language right that you don’t stop to think about where you are, who you’re talking to. I’ve heard so much Spanish here and I’m instantly filled with a desire to leap into conversation, which I can’t say happens as readily in English. I’ll just have to work on that.

I came back to the hostel around seven thirty and tried to get an early night’s sleep. I was in for a bit of a shock: the dripping was actually coming down onto my bed, a full third of which was soaked through. Never mind the damp, the constant slap of water on the soaked mattress was maddening. It’s funny how you can doze off amid the constant hum and roar of a plane engine, but a rhythmic tap with keep you up. I tried taping it up, but after five minutes it returned with a vengeance, beating an even faster rhythm than before. I admitted defeat and curled up into the drier part of the bed.

I confess I was so tired that I didn’t have the energy to drag myself out of bed and tell the front desk, but in the end I didn’t need to – a guardian angel in the bunk next to mine had already phoned ahead and eventually the hostel staff allowed me to move to the bed across the room. I don’t think I’ve ever fallen asleep so fast.

Tomorrow is another day – the bayou calls! BB x