THE MEDICAL TOUR - NEW ORLEANS

Saturday March 22, 1997 – New Orleans – Hot and sunny

We caught the shuttle bus to the airport and had a bite to eat out there before flying out at 9.30 am.

The weather was decidedly bleaker today – it was quite mild when we arrived last night but was nippy this morning with snow flurries predicted for later in the day. We are heading for New Orleans now where showers and temperatures in the mid 70sF (about 20C) are predicted. It will be our first visit there and we are looking forward to it. The rest of our plans – driving up the Mississippi valley may have to change as it appears that there is a very high chance of floods over the next week or two. We’ll check it out with the AAA in Houston next week.

I almost dozed off on the aircraft coming down from Pittsburgh, but it was not that comfortable with leather seats and no pillow. I had a second breakfast of fruit yoghurt and a muffin, which was good and that kept me going.

It was noticeably hot once we had landed and the captain asked us to put the window blinds down when we left the aircraft to keep it cool! That’s a first.

The airport seemed to be a good one, but the baggage reclaim area turned out to be a shambles and very badly signposted. We eventually found the baggage belt where our luggage was meant to come off but once again the missing case did not show. After further enquiries (and no apologies) they found that it had not been forwarded to Pittsburgh from Philadelphia, as promised so it had not made our flight. It was said that we would receive it at our hotel at 8.00 pm at the latest, but here we are at 8.45 pm and it still hasn’t turned up. The latest enquiry revealed that it had left the airport at 6.00 pm but delivery could take four hours!! They must have a lot of lost luggage to deliver.

There was no free transport supplied by the hotel and we were going to take the hotel express bus until we found that it only cost $1 less than a taxi! Weird economic approach that. We had a nice cabbie who delivered us to the hotel in about half an hour. It is a nice hotel but a little characterless, like so many chains. My Fodors has it classified as Expensive to Very Expensive so I guess we were fortunate to get it at what we thought was a reasonable rate when Harold quoted it to us in Cape Town. The foyer is on the eleventh floor and overlooks the river, as do all the rooms on that side. Our room overlooks a plaza to the rear. I checked on the price of the view. It was $40 per night and Rab thought that was too much.

We got going soon after checking in and decided to go on a bus tour. We often  do this in a new place to orientate ourselves.  There was one leaving at 2.30 so we had a bite to eat in the Food Court downstairs. We both chose red bean with rice and spicy sausage and found it very good too. After that little snack we strolled along the Moon Walk (named after a previous local dignitary) at the levee. 

The water is very high and the river is running very strongly. A couple of big boats went rocketing down and a tug was battling to get its barges around a corner. A paddle boat was loading passengers for a cruise and high on the stern deck a woman was playing a steam calliope. It was quite pleasant at a distance but rather loud and discordant close up. Apparently some of the bum notes were due to the slight breeze which tended to divert the steam from the organ pipes – or at least that’s what our bus driver/guide said.

The tour was interesting as was the guide. It lasted about two hours and covered the suburbs of New Orleans rather than the French Quarter. Amongst the sites we stopped at was one of the cemeteries where he explained the local custom of entombment rather than burial. The practice seems to be a practical solution to a high water table and some of the tombs are very impressive. After finishing off the tour we picked up a Baskin Robins ice cream to cool us down and strolled through Jefferson Square and on to Bourbon Street.

There were so many weirdos, fortune tellers and tarot readers – men with long purple hair; a gross man called Hubble Bubble would could’ve doubled for Jabba The Hutt; a woman in a wheelchair with hands like crab’s claws – not to mention assorted musicians, jugglers and tap dancers etc.

It was beginning to get dark as we strolled along Bourbon Street, which is really a continuous  chain of bars, sex shops and strip joints. Very noisy and very garish. People wandered everywhere with drinks in hand; young college boys with their beers and their eyes out on stalks; middle aged men (and women) clutching yard long cylinders of daiquiris; old drunks slugging back straight from the bottle. Music came from a dozen sources but all the singers sounded loud and off key. Little black kids with metal plates on their Nikes tapped away rhythmically for coins tossed by passersby. Neon lights flashing – all added up to a pretty unusual atmosphere. And all this at about 7.00 pm – it is difficult to imagine what it might be like late at night or in the early hours of the morning.

At one of the cross streets we came across a parade. Led by “Indians” on horseback and a couple of vintage cars, there were a dozen or so horse drawn carriages with young girls in them and some old trouts who looked as if they were – or thought they were – very important. We had no clue what it was all about. Later on, when we were further up town, a marching band came along, escorted by two police cars and followed by a shambling rabble of delegates from a conference who all looked rather sheepish under the gaze of onlookers.

Of course there are hundreds of restaurants in the French Quarter and I was feeling peckish, thirsty and my feet needed a rest, but Rab had seen a restaurant she fancied while we were on the bus, so off we trekked, looking for this place, whose name and location she could not recall exactly, although she thought it was the Gumbo Kitchen. Sporadic enquiries produced no firm information and so we pressed onwards moving further and further away from the lively part of town toward areas where office blocks and hotels reared skywards.

Finally, stopping a local couple walking their dog, we changed our line of questioning, in some desperation, and asked for guidance to any handy restaurant which would give us good local food at a reasonable price. They directed us to Mother’s (which we had actually seen on our wanderings) and it was just what we wanted. A noisy, happy diner with a wide range of local specialities. Rab had a Shrimp Creole and I had a Seafood Gumbo. We ordered small portions, having learned (or re-learned) our lesson at lunch time about the size of servings here. It was enough for us, and with a cold Corona was a satisfying meal. We will probably head back there for breakfast tomorrow – ham and grits being their main focus.

Back here Rab is dozing (since 8.30 pm) as she watches TV and I am waiting for the missing case. I called US Air who confirmed again that it had left the airport at 6.00 pm, but could take four hours to get here – presumably by pack mule!!