Sheila picked us up after breakfast and we set off again for the day. We started by riding the ferry over the Mississippi as we could not fit a proper boat trip into our busy schedule. As we crossed the river we saw two traditional style riverboats the Creole Queen and the Natchez. Although it was a short trip it served its purpose and ticked a box.
We returned into the city using the bridge and Sheila set course for the worst affected areas of New Orleans when Katrina struck. Over our two days, from Sheila and others we heard two phrases repeated often joined together, they were “after Katrina” and “they never came back”. The level of destruction is hard to imagine and even now, over six years later, things are still shocking on lots of levels. When driving round the low-lying poor areas which bore the brunt of the disaster some things were obvious, wrecked houses, skeletal filling stations but less obvious to us Sheila explained that for every grassed area there were houses that had gone completely. In any given street there were houses which were occupied and those which were deserted, sometimes the deserted ones were in at least as good shape as those which were being lived in, and there were gaps.
The photo I never took is still in my mind, a pair of tennis courts with no netting around them and no net, surrounded by grass with concrete piles standing two or three feet high like headstones for the houses they had once supported.
The same applied to Sheila’s street, she had suffered massive water damage to her home and is still completing the recovery, she had to organise the repairs while still based in Atlanta and it is little wonder that many people couldn’t manage or even face this task, they never came back.
As people talk about Katrina there is some bitterness about big business and government help. Insurance companies coughed up grudgingly and when owners received government compensation it was inadequate and the insurance companies clawed back what they had paid out. There is little incentive for paying home insurance based on this experience. In the areas hardest hit the infrastructure has only recovered in part, schools are operating without being fully repaired, hospitals have remained closed after Katrina, and the shops which operated in the area and made it a community never came back.
There was a limited boom after Katrina, when the money started coming through, there sprang up building suppliers, fast food outlets and cheap motels, all to service the returning people whose houses were not fit to live in.
For those unable to flee the city after New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin ordered the first-ever mandatory evacuation of the city, calling Katrina "a storm that most of us have long feared", the city government established several "refuges of last resort", including the massive Louisiana Superdome, which sheltered approximately 26,000 people and provided them with food and water for several days as the storm came ashore. Others were less fortunate and simply ended up on any high structure above the flooding; when we mentioned TV coverage of people trapped on an overpass Sheila shockingly told us that she had a cousin who died there.
In the aftermath of the disaster there were many stories which portrayed the population left in New Orleans in a poor light, many of these have been discredited but the resentment remains.
From Sheila’s side of New Orleans we set off for our Swamp tour, Sheila has a sophisticated phone set-up in her car and from it she had spoken to various friends who had delighted in telling us that a swamp boat had capsized and those tourists who didn’t drown were eaten by alligators. We were still intent on taking the risk. Julia had looked up from the internet Dr Wagner’s Honey Island Swamp Tours and Sheila had taken it from there, sorting out all we had to do, and the arrangements.
It was about half an hour out of the suburbs of the city and we were well off the beaten track by the time we reached the venue. We checked in and were set to go when called by the resident Drill Sergeant. The trips coming back were school children and they seemed undamaged. They were wearing life jackets but when we set off to our boat none were offered or issued to us. Each boat takes about 24 passengers sitting either along the side or on a central bench. I’m sure the driver/guides are all equally well trained but there is still the luck of the draw, our guide was, I’m confident, the best. As Brian Clough once said “I may not be the best but I’m in the top one”. He found us the wildlife we sought, he drove the boat with flair, he amused us with his anecdotes and he was a fund of general knowledge.
The early part of the tour takes you into the swamp, and our first piece of information was that a swamp is a flooded forest. The trees are adapted to their footing with either roots which protrude from the water to let the tree breathe or very thick bases to their trunk. Both of these features make for great photos and the high water mark on the trees looks as clear as if it is painted on.
We docked by bumping the flat bottom of the boat onto a tree root and our guide answered questions, having given us a warning that he didn’t do politically correct.
Q. Is there such a thing as Big Foot in the swamp?
A. No, we would have a dead one by now if there was, a young one killed on the highway, some idiot hunter would have shot one thinking it was a deer, the way I see it no dead ones means no live ones!
Q. Do you eat Alligator?
A. No I’m a local, why would I eat something expensive and tough with a not great taste?
Q. But people do eat them don’t they?
A. Only tourists and idiots!
Q. Has anyone ever been killed by an alligator in Louisiana?
A. Not since there have been records, perhaps some Native American kid wandered too close to the water and made a new addition to their menu but never since. A few arms and legs have gone missing though so keep your limbs inside the boat.
We set off again, we saw several Heron and Egrets, and then pulled in to see a snake basking in the weak sunshine. Julia is scared of snakes, not like anyone would be scared of a rattle snake in their sleeping bag but scared of any size, any type, anywhere so she was grateful that he didn’t take the boat too close. Later he told us all the ultimate snake story but that comes later.
Across our path he spotted a female alligator swimming at right angles to us some distance ahead.
Q. How did you know it was a female?
A. Lady, this ain’t my first day on the job, this ain’t my first dance. Too small to be male, if it was that size and male it would be a meal for a full-grown male.
He then continued to tell us that we were late in the day and later in the season so we would be very lucky to see a big male at all as they would be hibernating in the mud by now. One male alligator controls over a mile of river and fights to the death any other male that encroaches into their territory.
One of the earlier tours had seen a big male so he headed to where it had been, bracing us for disappointment. By memory the biggest alligators are up to 21 feet long. Suddenly he spotted the big one that had been reported earlier and he got us up close without disturbing it. It was in the shallows and was at least 15 feet long, we watched and photographed it before leaving it alone to head out into the river, it decided that its hibernation spot was calling and it followed us. We stopped and it swam past us, he reckoned that it was heading to a nice muddy area to bury itself and hibernate.
Q. Could you run away from a big male on land?
A. Forget it, they are scary fast, about 35 mph in a burst, and forget any zig-zag crap, they can change direction faster than you.
I thought we were returning to the starting point, which would have made the tour short but interesting, we crept past the floating fishing camps, taking heed of the “Slow watch your Wake” notices, then we continued past the jetty and into the river.
As soon as we were in the wider stream our guide announced, “Lets get some air” and opened the throttle, we flew along and as he turned the boat leant over like a motorbike.
Along the river banks there were nice houses and fishing camps, mainly reached by boat. Apparently new arrivals in the area would let their domestic dog out in the evening and some didn’t return having met up with a local alligator and become dinner.
Amongst the well-maintained buildings were some still wrecked by Katrina, another echo of they never came back, because if your real home was smashed and you now lived in Houston or Atlanta you probably never even checked out your fishing camp. It was also fun to notice that the trees grew real close to the water and in some places the houses had a solid tree growing up through their decking and out through their front porch roof. We progressed quite some way up the river passing under the highway we would need to use tomorrow before we turned back and again “got some air”.
Although we were going pretty fast he pulled the boat in towards the bank where there was usually a female alligator, he called it and when it approached he fed it a hotdog sausage which he had speared on a twig.
We returned towards base and he told the snake story, apparently he had collected a troop of girl scouts for his first run and without knowing a large snake, which had slept the night under the engine cover. When he “got some air” the snake was disturbed and slithered up onto the central aisle of the boat. The Girl Scouts and their leader were all looking outward while he watched several feet of snake appear, as soon as it was all out and on the flat surface, heading towards the front of the boat, he grabbed its tail and flung it over the side, the female scout leader caught sight of it flying past her head and never spoke again on the tour!
We returned to the base and clearly they were packing up for the night and putting the boats away, the drill sergeant was coordinating this, while we tipped our guide who has three daughters attending LSU, I should have asked him to send our best wishes via them to my tennis teammate, Chris Simpson, who is there and his being English means that the chances are they would know him.
Sheila was slightly out of her comfort zone on the boat tour and it was also the longest we went in public without someone recognizing her.
Back in the car however she was in command again, we drove to a Casino and ate the buffet before heading back into town. I struggled with the crabs as the shells refused to slide off the meat as easily as they should. While we walked through the gaming area I was politely reminded that there was no photography and my lens-cap was off my camera as it hung round my neck, I assured the guy that I was not taking any pictures and closed down the camera.
We arrived back on Bourbon Street, Sheila repeated her parking miracle and we walked down the centre of the road sightseeing. It was a much colder night and less inviting. We settled into a bar and watched a group fronted by a girl wearing a kimono and shoulder length black straight hair. She had a powerful voice and we enjoyed the music. After a few songs she pulled off her wig to reveal her shaven head, her explanation that she was too Blankety Blank Hot announced that the money spent on her Swiss finishing school was indeed wasted. It was also brilliant for people watching; there were four incidents/sights which I will share.
1) The doorman was the biggest guy I have ever seen in the flesh, bear in mind I hang out with basketball players and am usually immune to height, he was at least 7 feet tall, he sat on a tall bar stool with his feet flat on the floor.
2) The waitress was wearing a sweatshirt and a hood/mask of a skeleton, making for great pictures as she took orders.
3) Three 30+ ladies were dancing drunkenly in the small area in front of the band, when one of them knocked a beer off one of the front tables she just replaced the now empty bottle on the table and neither wiped up the mess nor confessed to its owner.
4) The group in front of us consisted of a girl, with several friends, she signed up to have her photo taken by a guy with a camera and printer, then to be sketched by a passing artist, only to tell both she had no money! Then by borrowing from her friends and sweet-talking the trader she ended up with both pictures!
We walked back to the car and from there were dropped off back at the hotel, we again went straight to bed having had one of the best of days.
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