It’s difficult to know where to start to write about the experiences beyond a simple listing of things. Words become inadequate to describe the sights sounds and smells of New Orleans and as the days pass between the events of yesterday and the writing the vivid images and words fade. So I guess if I start with the most recent and work backwards through experiences. I’ve spoken in a previous post about getting fit for the trip and about the fears that we wouldn’t be able to actually do this trip.
Bayou’s Gaters and the Sun
So we were faced with a choice about bayous and tours. Did we choose the air boat tour and sit in a tinny with a big fan attached to the back or try something a little different. Last time I was in New Orleans I chose the airboat. These tours are out in the farmed bayous and creeks, they are in essence a income stream for the alligator farms and there is nothing wrong with them. They take you out rapidly into the swamp areas and throw Marshmallows to the gators. Meanwhile they talk about the gaters and their life cycles. You are guaranteed to see them. It is a good way of seeing the swamp and the gaters for a large number of tourists, the boats hold anywhere from 10 to 25 tourists. You can add on a plantation tour as well to see the old farmsteads and the beauty that lies in them.
Course we opted to do something different. When looking up the air tours I noticed some kayak tours, looked them up. I missed out on getting a place on the nighttime full moon tour which would have been something really different. Instead we booked onto a daytime tour. There we 12 tourists in total, or six double kayaks paddling along the bayou with a awesome guide Matt. Matt knew his stuff and after checking out no one was going to fall out of their kayaks and that everyone could paddle. He started looking for wildlife for us. At first it was letting us know which of the frog song were echoing along the reed beds. But not long after he spotted a snake, identified it and gently picked it up using a special clamp. You could tell this guy cared about the animals he found as he talked quietly to the snake asking it to calm down and he wasn’t going to hurt it.
The snake however did not speak English and as he moved it to show us its belly and beautifully scales the snake struck his hand. Sinking its fangs deep into the web between his thumb and finger. The young New Yorker lady gasped in horror. She was the one worried about being eaten by the gators much to the teasing of her boyfriend. Snakes freaked her out even more it seemed. The snake meanwhile tried to engulf the guides hand, its jaw moving back and forth as it tried uselessly to swallow his hand. The guide meanwhile remained his calm demeanour and talked to us about the snakes four responses to threats. The first was to make itself look aggressive and flatten its head into an approximation of the ‘triangle’ head of something worse than it was, the second was to exude a stinky mess, the third was to actually attack and strike and the fourth was to give up.
Which is exactly what the snake did, it gave up and let go of his hand going limp in defeat. The snake it seemed had had a lucky escape in the past with his tail partially denuded of scales and dinted as if something has once in its life chewed on it. The guide explained about the differences in the scales as we floated around him the wind blowing out boats together. After a short time the guide put the snake back in the water where in a surprised fashioned it moved off. I wonder what the snake thought of its lucky reprieve, the long term impact on its systems of having given up only to then be released.
Gaters seemed to be scarce, the tour company did not feed marshmallows or anything else to the alligators, so they did not come whenever they saw the boats. Instead we listened to the frog calls, spoke about the different plants on the shore lines, those that were useable and those not. Even the forest itself and how it had changed from 100 years ago when fire was regularly used to keep the undergrowth down and the pine trees were the dominant tree. The lush jungle undergrowth was not the normal vegetation. He pointed out the middens from when the Indians would camp in the area. Something which I was interested to see trying hard to imagine a very different bayou which was far more open and just as productive.
High in some of the dead old trees sat two Ospreys nest, one we would make out the bird sitting on its eggs. They were hoping for a good year with the birds but bald eagles tended to take the chicks. Later we would see an Osprey hunting by itself which was simply majestic.
After a while of gentle paddling he talked about a alligator called Big Joe. Big Joe was the 12 foot water who patrolled that particular bayou. As he spoke he said last year a 10 foot male had entered the system and they thought that both would co exist until one day while out on tour both males ended up just beyond the boats and had a tussle. Thrashing the water and submerging. The 10 footer surfaced after a few minutes and swam rapidly away. BigJoe surfaced just after his snout covered in bottom gunk victorious again.
Anyway as he was talking Big Joe came into view, much to the squeals of the New Yorker lass. She was young and a inexperienced in nature. Afraid that big Joe would come over and try knock her out. Instead he looked balefully at us through his one good eye as we skirted around him. After big Joe we did see five more gaters. The best viewing was two near the lakes entrance. Matt had explained that one was a female and the other just generally hung around. Five of the boats had made it through to the lake on the far side of the alligators and we were in the last boat when the first one suddenly swam across our bow. It was a really interesting sight watching the creature move so fast ahead of us. The kayak just in front turned to look. There were two fit and outdoorsy chicks, they had attacked the bayou with kayak strokes as though entering into a race, instead of our leisurely float. It was one of those moments as they twisted around and I had the front row seats watching the alligator from its level not from a airboat.
We stopped for lunch on a small beach just past the opening of the lake. The lake itself stretched on to the horizon a steel grey mass, the wind kicking up small caps and changing the colours to deep blue. The sky was mostly blue with the odd cloud giving us relief from the unrelenting sun. It was the sun that the tour guides warned us about. They had roasted numbers of Europeans to the point that they now carried towels to place over peoples bare legs on the way back. I in my usual style of being out all day and having turned slightly pink with walking the day before was in long pants and shirt. It was warm and we were thankful for the cool breeze that did sweep over the beach. The breeze seemed to shift directions in the bayou although that could have been the twists and turns. At times we worked against it and others it seemed to push us along playfully. The trip back was relaxing as the group elongated. IKaruS and I along with the tour guide brought up the back. It gave us time and serenity to watch the environment and to feel the peace. We spoke quietly with the guide about the heat and how it was pleasant out today. He agreed having spent almost 10 years out here and still loving it. It was nice to find someone happy with their job. We asked what he did to relax and he said be outdoors, hiking, biking, kayaking.
We arrived back to the launch site dry and with no alligators bite marks on us. A pleasant surprise awaited us on the bus back as we ended up at a local ice-cream parlour. I had home made creole cream cheese ice-cream and iKaruS a cherry snowball. The flavours were nice combined together and best of all it came as part of the tour. It was one of those tours where I really enjoyed the ethos, the style and the exercise. That worry about being fit enough faded a little bit more from our minds.
(sorry bout the image it's actually iKaruS at Flamingo a go go but we've not loaded the other images yet!)
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