NEW ORLEANS, YO-'ALL

To tell you the truth, I have long harboured a desire to visit New Orleans. It probably started after I read a lot of Mark Twain and watched Maverick on TV as a kid. Grooving to Eric Burdon singing House of the Rising Sun, and seeing Easy Rider about 30 times probably helped as well. Carolyn & I had plane tickets & hotels booked for a stay when we were in the US in 2005, but Hurricane Katrina scuttled those plans, & a lot more besides.

I had a fairly early start this morning. I was due to leave San Diego at 8.20 am, Having already discovered the advantages of getting to the airport earlier rather than later,with the heavy security, etc, I had decided to eat at the airport instead of the hotel, but when the choice turned out to be Maccas or pizza, I decided to forgo breakfast. However, there was a bit of fog about this morning, & the plane I was due to catch could not land for a while, & eventually took off 45 minutes late. Consequently the relaxed brunch break I had planned for Houston turned into a breathless sprint down a seemingly endless corridor (lined both sides with food outlets, I might add) to change planes. I was almost the last to get off the plane & the last to board the flight to New Orleans. The pilot was waiting at the door , & said he was just about to shut it. When I arrived, with the time differences, it was 3.30 pm local. By the time I got the shuttle into the city, it was close on 5pm, & I hadn't eaten a thing all day. However, the guy driving the shuttle turned out to be worth the money. He gave us passengers a non stop commentary about NOO AW-lins and its history, in quite remarkable depth, whether we wanted to hear it or not. The commentary was interesting all the same, even if some of the jokes seemed a bit lame, or too well rehearsed. The dialogue was peppered with lots of slowly drawled "Yo-'all" s. So far I haven't established if that's really the way everyone speaks around here, or if he was laying it on for the tourists.

I got a reality check shortly afterwards though. After being dropped in the city, I still had to get to my hotel, which was still bloody miles away to the east. I was carrying a backpack, my helmet & a bag that weighed a ton, & do you think I could spot a cab? Eventually I found one in a side street, with three rough looking black guys standing next to it. It looked pretty banged about, but too bad. When I told them where I wanted to go, two of them just laughed, & the remaining guy said flatly "thirty bucks". Clearly he was the most entrepreneurial of the group. Now I don't even know if he was really a taxi driver, or whether he just stole the cab right then & there, but they were the last words I got out of him, so I'll never know. I had an uneasy feeling that people were watching me & saying "look at that tourist sucker".

Soon we were on the Interstate, and rapidly heading further away from all the things I had come here to see. The landscape turned to slums, burned out derelict factories, abandoned houses, and out on the horizon, several petro-chemical plants. Great! This must be the other three quarters that the French didn't want, & now I know why. Not a real good introduction but hopefully things will improve from here. Maybe moving out of the Post Apocolypse district would be a good start. Yo'all come back now, y'hear.