Boating in the Bayou

Monday, June 06, 2016
Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve, Louisiana, United States
The bayou! The bayou! Any bayou!!

I can't even tell you what a bayou is . It was French-ified Chocktaw, possibly, meaning a slow moving stream or river, or maybe a marshy wetland or lake, or perhaps a creek whose current reverses daily and contains brackish water. I know, I know, that's a Wikipedia summary. Creative commons, yo. Basically the slow, silty, massive delta of the Mississippi is a perfect bayou area. Iberville and all the French Canadians, Spanish and English that tried to find it from the Gulf of Mexico had a LOT of difficulty getting there. That's why the first part of that book I mentioned in the last entry still hasn't reached a point of putting any buildings in New Orleans. They're all still wading around the wetlands being flooded.

Fortunately, there are solid roads today, and I of course mean literally today because hey; how solid were they in 2005... I rented a car. I got a Nissan Senestra, which was nothing compared to my awesome little Honda Civic last summer. GUYS, they do not do a 4-door Civic in Ireland. WHY. The Senestra was probably too big, but I had booked an AIRBOAT trip out in the bayou, and since everywhere outside the French Quarter in America is built for cars, I needed a car. Also, the boat guys did a bus pickup in the city, but the additional cost and entanglement with tourists and bus times were just not worth it. It was cheaper to rent a car for the day. That's mad.

I left way too early because I wasn't sure how long it would take to get out to Jean Lafitte National Park . I overestimated the sizes and distances (and rush hour) down here, and ended up at my destination about an hour and half early, and it was the BAYOU. There was nothing else to do. I actually went to the wrong place first, because it was the swamp boat tour, not the airboat tour place. While the woman at the desk figured that out, I wandered around, on and off the swamp boats (big, covered, metal boats that can hold hundreds of people) and admired their snapping turtle. No wait, I think he was an alligator turtle... He was a biting turtle, and he was big, and the lady also just casually warned me to watch out for gators in the grass, but they'd probably be a bit sleepy anyway so I could get away.

Let's take a mini-break here to emulate my time wandering around doing nothing. There are a lot of things down here named Lafitte or Lafayette, after the pirate, Jean Lafitte. Because that's how New Orleans names things, yo. After pirates and jazz musicians, and smooshed up daredevil aviation pioneers, at least until something more controversial comes along. There's a bar called Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop on Bourbon Street, and it's one of the oldest buildings in New Orleans (because it was built of stone and didn't go on fire like almost everything else) and it has also been called "the oldest structure in the US housing a bar". I don't know why Wikipedia or tour guides use those exact words, but cool. He's a popular pirate, and he sells .

When the swamp tour woman figured out I was in the wrong place, she directed me a few miles down the road to the correct place. I took my car off again, and ended up in serious boondocks. That's not ever a word I use, but it describes this place. It was kind of like someone just dropped a pile of wobbly wooden houses down in a cane field. I also don't know what a cane field is, but there was tall, grassy stuff and dirt roads and random boats and stuff. I was in the right place in the end, and there were proper, real life Cajuns there. Hurray! About the only thing that disappointed me about New Orleans is probably the same thing that disappoints Americans who stray off the Irish tourist trail: no strong accent. So it was a delight to listen to someone who didn't just sound like they were off tv.

I was also dyyyyying of thirst at this point - you might have wondered why I spent an hour and a half wandering around doing nothing: there IS NOTHING to do out here but look at stuff. Shops will sink, and regular people aren't interested in swamps (like those girls on the plane). Fortunately, the boy in the boat house (actual house, where they sold tickets in the front room) also had a fridge with water. I got some water and waited "out back" under the oaks and the spanish moss, and watched weird shaped weeds float by on the river. I could see all the airboats lined up, and there wasn't another soul around for quite a while . I had chosen the small airboat on purpose; smaller, but I wanted more to myself. 

Then of course, everyone came at once, and assumed I was trying to jump the queue when I appeared out of the trees in a panic. Once again, I was fortunate, because they had enough small children in close enough contact to open water that they got tangled up in one another, and I snagged myself a front edge seat on the children-less airboat. (I actually love children: I couldn't be a primary teacher if I didn't; but I am on holidays from dealing with children. And besides, I have far better control of a group of 30 children than most tourist parents do of 2. And if you want to tag along on a school day or tour with me, I will prove it to you. So I wasn't in the mood to have little Chandler and Quincey show me how wonderful they could spell 'kerkidale' and wail and cry when they couldn't have alcohol on the boat, or whatever.)

Two girls about my age from LA (Los Angeles, not Louisiana) sat beside me, and there were other people behind us, but I didn't have to look at them, and they only said one funny thing on the entire trip, so I don't know what they were like. Our boat driver was Captain Randy, because that's the sort of name a croc wearing, Cajun gator farmer would have. He was brilliant. So was the airboat. It was so loud we had to wear those ear muff/defender things. And we weren't allowed drop anything in the water because it would be gone (not because a gator would get it; Randy ain't scared of no gator y'all) so one LA girl promptly dropped her lip balm lid for us . Excellent demonstration! 

The river was just normal. It felt like flying though, because there were no bumps with the waves or anything on the boat. But then there are all these side passages off the river, and more and more, and they just lead to weeds in the swamp. I have no idea how anyone remembers them, or knows where they are going. They have private "land" too, because the area we went onto had a "Private" sign, and belonged to Randy's family.

If you go down here, I completely recommend an airboat tour. There's kind of no fantastic way of describing it. The boat drives over the plants and the weeds, and Randy tells you stuff about life down here. That in itself doesn't sound tremendously interesting, but it's so much fun. Then you add all these weirdly coloured birds flying around everywhere. One had these big long legs for walking on the weeds, and Randy coaxed him to actually walk up onto the boat and eat out of his hand . What did he feed him? Why, marshmallows, of course. Because he lives in the marsh. 

WHAT.

Then. Guys. There are literally gators EVERYWHERE. They were just casually floating all around us, gently and serenely visiting the boat. Why? BECAUSE RANDY FEEDS THEM MARSHMALLOWS. He also leans down and tickles their tummies, because he's not allowed get into he water with them when he's giving a tour anymore. I mean, what harm can come of a little play-wrestling with a gator in the water, compared to swimming with them, right?

THEN. We were just admiring the gators all around us, and not being unnerved by their proximity at all, and Randy starts cooing on the back of the boat because he HAS A PET BABY GATOR. He brings him in an ice box (with no ice) on his tours. And he is a PET. And for a creature that hasn't needed to evolve since in or around the time of the dinosaurs (what's a geological age between friends?), he was ridiculously cute.

Some other facts we learned were that gators were nearly wiped out for a while, because everyone was hunting them. They also don't breed that well in captivity, so what they do now is people like Randy and his brothers collect gator eggs, in conjunction with gator farmers. The farmers fly over the swamp in helicopters and drop flags wherever they see gator nests . Then Randy and his two brothers boat out to the nest. One brother distracts the mother gator, and the other two steal most of the eggs. A gator can swim up to about 20mph, and the only funny line from the other tourists was here: "Can you?!" Randy couldn't, but he usually leaves that to another brother.

The eggs are then incubated by the farmers. They have a better survival rate with farmers than they do in the wild, so this isn't as environmentally unsound as it may seem. Also, you determine a gators gender by how long or how hot the eggs are kept. I forget which. About 20% of the teenage gators are returned to the swamp, and the rest are chopped up for meat and skin. Hurray. But, I suppose that means that at least there are always 20% of the survivors surviving. And I get to eat the other 80% and take cool pictures of it.

There are also these other creatures that I had to google when I got back, because I thought Randy was calling them "new tree rats". He described them as like a beaver, but with a rat's tail. They're actually nutria or coypu. They were imported from South America before people had any sense, and it turns out they can burrow and breed like crazy, and they got all out of control because they could escape any enclosure in Louisiana. I forget if there's still a monetary harvesting programme in place or not, but there definitely was. All Randy and the other trappers had to do was catch them and cut off their tails, then bring the tails to the guys with the money . Somehow, they have been extinct in Ireland since 1967. Go us...?

Attempts to use their fur (instead of beaver, for example) or their meat for eating have been unsuccessful, because people don't like wearing or eating stuff with 'rat' in the name, in the US anyway. They are causing a lot of damage in the swamps, eating the plants, digging up the soil, and Randy might even be of the opinion that is the fault of the nutria that the levees were undermined and failed so catastrophically during Katrina. That is one of the more 'out there' theories I have heard, but reading up on these creatures, it certainly makes a point for not introducing a species to an area without having any goddamn clue what you're doing.

Soon we were finished with the tour and back on wetland, instead of just wet. It turned out the two LA girls had gotten an Uber out to the swamp, and were only now realising that perhaps that hadn't been a great idea, because there was no phone signal, and no Uber. I sympathised with them at first and carried on to my car, before one ran after me and wondered if perhaps I could bring them back to the city. I felt kind of bad, because I hadn't thought of that myself, but I also hadn't intended on going straight back to the city. I was going to Hobby Lobby. *sigh*

I told them I could bring them as far as Hobby Lobby, if that worked . At least it was within the limits of civilisation, and they could probably get an Uber from there within their lifetimes. They thought it was super-cute that my Google maps "has an accent" - it's just an English woman's voice. I don't think it does "lyrical Irish brogue" yet. It turned out that they worked in finance and stuff, and didn't have quite the same teachery obsession with Hobby Lobby that I have. They were able to get an Uber within 9 minutes, so I bade them farewell and went off to shop!!!! (For flat, small, light stuff that would fit in my medium-sized suitcase.)

I was hungry then, and I wanted a bit of American capitalism, so I went into a nearby mall and ate in the food court. It was totally fine, but definitely my only food low-point on this trip. I looked in Bath and Bodyworks, because smelling that place is fantastic, and they do these tiny car air-fresheners that don't make me queasy. And that fit in a suitcase. I went into Sephora and Ulta too, because Grace has turned me into an addict, and it was there so I had to send her a picture . Then I decided that I wanted to return the car while Hertz was still open, but I might have time to do two more things if I left now.

I wanted to go up to Lake Pontchartrain, but it's too far to walk, a bike trip would also take a while, and I was avoiding buses. I had a car! Who needs jazzy passes! So I spun up and around somehow or other, and dipped my toes in. It was quite windy and wavy, and a passing boy on a bike asked me if it was calm where I was. I didn't really know how to answer that because I was going in no further than my toes, and he looked ready for a swim. I think he thought I was stupid or had no English, so he left. It was 29°C, which I know because Snapchat said so, but it felt like waaaaaay more. I had my hat, my hoodie and my sunglasses on to protect me from the heat. I looked like a weird snowman in shorts.

Another thing that's weird, AND GREAT, is there were no insects biting me. Why?! Were they on holiday? I mean, besides the rain the first night and the sunburn the second day, and just having at least two showers a day to de-sweat, everything is great down here... Are there not usually mosquitoes? Ants? Moths? I have more problems with fruit-flies at home in the rain! Maybe they just move too slow in New Orleans...

My second car-wishlist thing was to drive through the Lower 9th Ward, which I still had plenty of time to do . You go out over the bridge, and it's obviously very poor, and low and flat, but there isn't anything in particular out there. I also wouldn't really get out of the car, because I have A) no knowledge of the area, and B) some self-preservation instinct. I drove by a place called The Lower 9th Ward Living Museum, but it was closed. It's actually more of children's after-school charity place I think, and it was down a very depressed and unpopulated exit off the main road. There was only one single guy sitting on a porch, and I just paused beside it and left, and accidentally saluted him on my way off. He just glared, so I got back on the main road fast.

It started POURING rain then, and I decided I would finish my driving tour when the weather had cleared. I pulled in at this ridiculously posh, clean, huge petrol station to fill the tank back to what it was when I rented it. The station was so out of place in the middle of all the small, run down houses. I pulled in the wrong way first because I misread the arrow on the dashboard. I'm super though, and I figured it out after I got out of the car and checked. Then of course, I couldn't open the bloody thing. I spent a while wandering around and reading the manual and pulling levers, and eventually the guy filling the truck behind me (an actual truck, like a lorry, not a pickup) burst out laughing and came over to help me. I figured out the open switch in the end, but then I couldn't decide whether it was petrol or diesel, and which one to get . OH MY GOD AMERICA, WHY DO YOU MAKE IT SO HARD.

"It's a rental?" the trucker asked
"Yes, I just got it this morning!" I wailed
"Eh, then it doesn't matter. It's probably gas, just put the cheapest one in."

He swung his dreadlocks in confirmation of a solid idea and went back to filling his truck. It takes a loooong time to fill a truck.

I had to pay inside first, of course, because I don't have a zip code to confirm my credit card at the machine. Then I forgot the value of petrol/gas, and way overpaid because I was thinking of Irish prices. I didn't get that back from Hertz, I can tell you. It also took a looong time to give the keys back, because they didn't want to talk to me, even though there were at least three people desperately begging for a car in there.

I had a rest after a strenuous day of driving, and shower to de-sweat, and then I headed out, ostensibly to go the Frenchman's street to hear some jazz . I never made it as far as Frenchman's Street this trip, I can tell you now. Something too interesting always happened before I got that far.

This time, it started raining, so I said "I'm over 21 and I'm not driving for a few more days; I'm going to drink in a bar! Yay, New Orleans!" and I went into the first bar I saw. I sat beside a girl on her own who was wolfing down oysters, and I ordered a red wine. She was reeeeally enjoying the oysters, so I asked her what they were like. I have had one oyster ever, in Kuala-Lumpur. I live in a county where there is an oyster festival every year, and I have also heard people describe them as "snot", so it's hard to bridge that divide if you secretly know nothing.

She was polite, and said they were very good today. She was on her way home from the gym, she lived just up the street, and that barman there was her husband. How interesting! I said I'd try the half dozen oysters too, because she didn't seem like the preachy type, but she'd give me enough info on how to eat them .

Lemon. Salt. Pepper. Tabasco sauce (no thanks). Suck the whole thing into your mouth, and chew if you wish. I wished. 

THEY WERE GORGEOUS.

I ate them all and drank my wine and chatted with the girl about Ireland and Cuba and families that own apartments in the French Quarter. She was going home at that point and I could go back with her and visit their apartment with a wraparound balcony if I wished.

I WISHED.

WOW. How cool. How friendly! Their apartment was so nice. They're all built around an internal courtyard, and there are about four different apartments inside. The buildings are old, preserved, and hard to modernise, but my god they had it beautiful inside. Every room was a work of art. One had all these lights playing across the wall. And then we went out onto the balcony and I nearly cried . There was an amazing jazz band playing just below us, and the rain was gone, and I had eaten oysters, and there were tourists looking up at me jealously... This was so cool. I stayed for ages, said hello to the cat, and got some excellent recommendations for bars and jazz places to visit.

When I eventually left, I bought two CDs from the band in the street, and went to one of the bars she had recommended. It was brilliant. The air was so warm and the drinks so cold, that the ice cubes were actually steaming. The cocktails were amazing and unusual. I wandered around for a long while more, and had some more midnight beignets in Café Du Monde on the way back.

I love this city.

 

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2025-02-13

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