Still in New Orleans

Saturday 19 January

Our last day in New Orleans is not quite as cold. I wear one layer less - probably will be a mistake but I am seduced by the glorious sun!

The Natchez Steamboat is moored across the  canal from our RV park. It has been our view from the RV for the last few days.
It is undergoing a refit; there have been people working on it each day including today. I guess it will be needed during Mardi Gras for daily tours on the Mississippi River.


Mardi Gras - French for Fat Tuesday - may cover the entire period from Epiphany (6 January) to the day before Ash Wednesday, Shrove Tuesday in many other countries around the world, or just the few days leading up to Fat Tuesday. The festival season varies from city to city in the US; it is not observed nationally, but a number of traditionally ethnic French cities and regions have celebrations.

Mardi Gras is music, parades, picnics, floats, excitement ... and one big holiday in New Orleans. The Carnival festivities are celebrated with lavish masked balls, ornate costumes and colourful floats. Everyone is wearing purple, green and gold and are adorned with long beads caught from the floats. During Mardi Gras businesses and roads practically shut down; people walk everywhere; the slogan  'let the good times roll' is very much alive.

Many Carnival traditions began with the Krewe of Rex, the King of Mardi Gras, in the 1872 parade.
The tradition of throwing souvenir coins, beads and dolls from the floats began a few years later.
As we travel around New Orleans we see long necklaces of beads in purple, green and gold hanging from the trees bordering streets. They are caught up in the trees during the parades and  left there from year to year.

We take the 10am shuttle. When we arrive in town we join up with Rick and Sue, a couple  from Colorado who are also staying at the RV park. We book a City Tour for 1pm then wander through the French Market, an area which served as a trading place for Native Americans before European settlement. Rows upon rows of  stalls and tables selling everything from jewellery and pottery to arts and crafts. I thought there would have been much more fresh Louisiana  produce but I guess we weren't in the right place.
A coffee and sugar-coated beignet before joining the tour. We came away lightly dusted with icing sugar; impossible not to.

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These guys made a great sound!

We join the City Excursion for a 2 hour informative sightseeing tour. Our tour guide and driver is a local. He is interesting and provides some unique insights into life in New Orleans.

Only in New Orleans could cemeteries be major tourist attractions. Because the city is built on a swamp, the deceased have to be buried above ground often in elaborate stone crypts and mausoleums. Over time the cemeteries have come to resemble small villages and are known as Cities of the Dead.

We visit St Louis Cemetery #3. Our guide explained that there are 2 types of crypts - family vaults and oven crypts. A coffin is slid inside one of these crypts and the combination of heat and humidity acts like a slow cremation. In a year or so (they let the family grieve at the first anniversary) the occupants bones are all pushed to the back, the coffin pieces are removed and another coffin can be inserted. In the larger family vaults there are shelves. As family members die, the bones are swept into a pit below and everyone lies jumbled together!! An efficient use of space!

We drive through the lower 9th Ward, a district devastated by Hurricane Katrina in August 2005. It was one of the strongest storms to impact the coast of US in the last 100 years. New Orleans was extensively damaged, almost as much by the failure of the levees as by the hurricane.
Many people moved away and abandoned their homes. On many blocks, a carefully restored home sits beside one that has been boarded up.

St. Louis Cathedral

Looking at those neighbourhoods certainly brings home the strength and ferociousness of mother nature.










We have a meal at Cafe Maspero's, on Decatur Street, sharing seafood platters.

More strolling, back to Bourbon Street which is now closed off to traffic - as it is each night. It is almost impassable with people yet it is still relatively early!
We seek out Pat O'Brien's Piano Bar - 2 girls on pianos playing anything and everything. Trevor requests a Willie Nelson song. We stay there until 'shuttle time'.