Gator Country: a night on the swamp.

After a couple of days driving fairly long distances we feel the need to relax. We're back near where we began our journey, at Henderson, deep in Cajun country. We hire a houseboat on the Atchafalaya Basin for a couple of nights.

Owner Mitch towes us out to the swamp and gives us some tips on what to look out for. There are some ducks with "a orange, orange bill and orange, orange feet" he tells us, except in his Cajun accent it's "onje, onje bill and onje, onje feet". So our eyes are peeled for something paricularly orange (onje). At local supermarket Hebert's (Ay-bare's) the cashier says they call people on the landings "levee rats". I think this is mean as our hosts are some of the nicest people we have met in America.

The houseboat comes with a small boat with an outboard motor that we can use to explore the swamp. Whilst exploring we see an aligator on a few occasions, one time we circle each other to get a better look. It's like going on a swamp safari! The place is teeming with all kinds of ducks, herons, egrets, hawks etc. We also see turtles and, right next to our houseboat, a racoon family emerges from the bushes. Its nice to be in a peaceful place for a while and to wake up to this view:


After getting towed back around 2pm saturday afternoon we take a drive around the area again. These drive-thru daquiri/casino places are common, despite the radio messages from the sherrif saying "if I catch anybody drinking and driving they're getting a ticket!" It's against state law to have an open bottle containing alcohol in the car, even for a passenger, so they put some kind of stopper on the straw. Or so we are been told, as we didnt buy a daquiri. It's a very schizophrenic attitude to drink driving, it strikes us.

In New Iberia you can see the Sliman Theatre which bears the name "Evangeline". Taken from the heroine of Longfellow's poem, about the separation of two lovers during the expulsion of Acadians from Nova Scotia, the name crops up frequenlty in this area. There is the Evangeline Oak in St Martinville and even a racetrack called Evangeline Downs near Opelousas.


" Thus ere another noon they emerged from the shades; and before them

Lay, in the golden sun, the lakes of the Atchafalaya.

Water-lilies in myriads rocked on the slight undulations

Made by the passing oars, and, resplendent in beauty, the lotus

Lifted her golden crown above the heads of the boatmen"

- from "Evangeline", Henry Longfellow.