New Orleans
15.06.2008 - 16.06.2008
32 °C
Another long pause and now here we are again. We arrived in New Orleans in the late afternoon last Sunday, driving down Bourbon Street in the French Quarter to get to our hotel. The place was alive with loud music (though no jazz) and many people milling and careening around with drinks in their hands. There was a certain amount of horrification from the younger members of our family. I was thinking that it seemed as though all was back to normal in New Orleans but the more we walked around, the more we saw evidence of the flooding and all the problems it had caused. There was still the wildness but not so much of the color and the charm. The French Quarter was lively but not at all crowded. Restaurants were barely half full and the hotels were very discounted (not complaining). Many people wanted to know if we were enjoying our stay and they mentioned how much they appreciated visitors.
Since we had a whole day in New Orleans we decided to go out and explore the Jean Lafitte Swamp, just half an hour from the French Quarter. What an adventure that was! It was a real swamp, complete with Cypress Elbows, huge yellow spiders, alligators, lovely frogs, an amazing mixture of sound, and even a poisonous snake (kindly pointed out by another hiker – “nothing to worry about unless you surprise them”). We walked three miles on the trails, through the tall Cypress trees hanging with moss and along the sleepy bayous. There were hundreds of Dragon Flies, most of which were bright red and we saw beautiful birds, including a large Blue Heron.
Back in the French Quarter, we loved sampling pralines at a few places and the Beignets were drowning in powdered sugar and delicious as I remembered. We bought some water from a street vendor in the midst of a very hot walk around and learned that he was evacuated to Phoenix after the flooding and had just returned to New Orleans last Thanksgiving. The man who checked us out of our hotel early yesterday morning looked tired and worn as he said that it would likely be five more years before New Orleans was back in the swing.
Posted by Koepilot 18.06.2008 11:44
