We headed into New Orleans this morning for what we thought would be day one of at least two days of visiting the city. We left quite early so we could have all day there; the drive took us back across Lake Pontchartrain and into the city from the north. Seeing as it is a major port city we didn’t encounter very much traffic this morning and with a little pre planning we found the parking garage with ease; and unlike some cities we have visited parking was dirt cheap at only $5.00 for 10 hours.
We started out walking down Canal Street before cutting onto Bourbon Street. Since it was only mid morning there wasn’t too much activity along Bourbon Street even though some of the bars and ‘gentlemen’s clubs’ were open. We walked along for a while past bars and souvenir stores before we had enough and headed towards the river. Possibly Bourbon Street is more exciting at night but I have to tell you that the smell of stale alcohol and puke doesn’t make it a great place to visit during the sunlight hours.
We made our way to Jackson Square and visited the St. Louis Cathedral, which is described as one of the oldest and most photographed cathedrals in the country. It was fine as cathedrals go, but I think Mike and I have been spoilt by some of the places we’ve visited and this cathedral did not strike us as particularly photo worthy. The square itself was a nice place to hang out and get up close and personal with Old Hickory, General Andrew Jackson himself, while being serenaded by street musicians.






We crossed over Decatur and got to view the Mississippi from some place other than the top of a bridge. The banks of the river as far as it is possible to see and full of activity. After a stroll along the river we visited Café du Monde and had café au lait and beignets; translation, chicory coffee with milk and fried, sugar coated doughnuts. The coffee was good and I wouldn’t say no to the doughnuts again either.




We wandered some more around the French Quarter before deciding to take a cemetery tour. We just signed up in time and had to boogie to the meeting place to meet our guide, Mike. There were two others on the tour, a woman from Kentucky and a Canadian guy and they were both as weird as they come and neither one stopped talking for longer than it took them to take a breath. We visited St. Louis Cemetery No.1 and learned all about above ground burial. The cemetery opened in 1789 and if you own a vault there you can still be buried today. The process is kind of grisly; you get put in a coffin and then sealed into the vault. Everyone has to remain in their coffin in the vault for at least a year and a day (it’s a city ordinance), if after that time there are no more dead people waiting to go into your vault you can stay where you are. If another family member has died within that time, then once your year and a day are up you get taken out of your coffin and whatever is left of you (not much at that point since the temperature inside the vaults are ridiculous) gets put back on the slab of your vault and swept to the back. The goop and bones then fall down through a gap to the bottom of the vault and you spend the remainder of forever there, sloshing around with the rest of your long dead relatives. If a person dies and another family member is already occupying the vault and hasn’t been there a year and a day, then the body of the second dead person has to ‘rent’ a vault until the time has passed, then their year and a day starts from the time they are placed in their vault. It’s a bit like musical coffins! The cemetery is about a city block in size, and our guide told us that there is probably upwards of 100,000 people buried there. It is supposed to be the final resting place of voodoo queen Marie Laveau and we saw three tombs which could contain her remains; they were easy to spot as they have stuff left as offerings and xxx marked on the walls of the tomb. According to our guide however she is buried in a different cemetery altogether; it’s unlikely that it’ll ever be figured out which tomb her remains are in.






After the tour we headed back to the car. Mike swears he saw a drug deal going down while we were walking back to the garage. I can’t say I saw anything but since I’m oblivious to most stuff of that nature I probably was looking right at it and still managed to miss it. We took a drive to the Garden District after leaving the French Quarter and checked out some of the huge old antebellum houses that cover every inch of this area. They are beautiful houses although they are so close together these days that you could barely walk alongside them. Right on the edge of the Garden District we stopped to get gas. It’s weird to have so many wealthy homeowners living only a few blocks away from a place where I wanted to lock the car doors while Mike pumped gas. It was a little scary, lots of guys with wife beater shirts and no teeth.
This was only the beginning of the poverty as we left downtown New Orleans and headed towards the lower ninth ward; this was the area that got hit the worst by hurricane Katrina. As we got closer to it we could see lots of buildings that are abandoned with lots of damage; a lot of the people who left during the hurricane have still not come back. The lower ninth ward does show too much of the devastation anymore, there aren’t falling down houses everywhere, but there are lots of open spaces amongst the houses that have been rebuilt. The rubble has been removed but the house pads are still there and it’s easy to see how many people have not returned. Looking at the position of the area in relation to the water it’s easy to see how so much devastation was wrought, there really is nowhere for the water to go once it gets into this area – definitely not the best place to build a home.
New Orleans seems to me to be a really sad place, very touristy, sleazy, and poor. I was expecting to see a vibrant city alive with welcoming people but it was nothing like that at all. I can see why our guide from the swamp yesterday (who is a born and bred New Orlean) that locals never visit the French Quarter – why would they?
When we headed back over the lake the wind had really picked up, the water was crashing against the pillars of the causeway. We had intended to go back to New Orleans tomorrow and spend another day exploring but we saw everything we wanted and needed to today so somewhere different tomorrow I think.

Mike: I feel really bad for the people of New Orleans, not just for the devastation of Katrina, but for who they have turned into. I can't imagine any normal people still living here! It's a sespool!