New Orleans

It's hard to know where to begin, but maybe this morning is a good place to start. So, after waking up at the rest stop and eating a quick peanut butter on bread, we started driving. It was really foggy but warm, and we noticed that everything seemed really green. As the sun came out, it became clear that we were officially out of winter and into tropical climes! We drove until we got to the Tourist Information Stop at the border with Louisiana, where we stopped to get a map and other info, and lucked out with the guy that we talked to. He gave us a coupon for a great hotel deal right in heart of the French Quarter - a block from the riverfront and french market - at the colonial Hotel Provincial, $49 a night (with parking, wireless, breakfast, etc)! We are lucky that we got here on a Sunday. As we drove in we really started to notice that the landscape had changed - apart from the greenery and the bright reddish earth, the deer roadkill on the side of the highway started to give way to dead armadillos and coyotes. Closer to New Orleans on I-10, we drove over all these amazing river systems, flanked by lakes on both sides and with houses that looked like they could only be accesible by boat. On driving into the downtown area we passed by these great old cemetaries, not unlike the Recoleta in Buenos Aires, and the superdome, which made us remember Spike Lee's film on Hurrican Katrina that we saw a couple of years ago, and wonder about all the people who were affected by the hurricane. I wonder how many of them were able to come back here, and how many were encouraged to "relocate" in order to make room for tourists like us?

Anyways, once we got to the downtown French Quarter, we were excited to find that it looks like a combination of Buenos Aires, Montreal and Florida, all very crazy and touristy, but also very cool. After checking out the hotel (which has a beautiful courtyard and pool, and all the rooms are decorated with antique furniture), we went for lunch at Cafe Maspero's (also recommended by the guy at the tourist office) for an amazing meal. The kids had Muffaletta sandwiches, which are stuffed with pastrami, ham, other anonymous meats, swiss cheese, green olive relish on a huge sesame bun, and Gustavo and I both ordered fried seafood platters heaped with tons of battered and deep-fried squid, shrimp, oysters, and catfish, served with salad and lemon, and various sauces like creole mustard and tabasco sauce- yum! (Did you know that Tabasco sauce is made in the Cajun area of Lousiana?) As you can tell we were really hungry, but we could easily have done with sharing one platter- they were huge! We took the leftovers back to our room for an afternoon snack. Luckily I didn't find out until later that the restaurant was actually once the site of the slave exchange in New Orleans! eeek. You can read more about the restaurant here: http://www.mitchellspublications.com/cs/4/ea/ It is funny that a couple of people have mentioned the food focus of our travels - but hey, what else could you expect coming from us, right?

After eating, we took a stroll along the riverfront: here we are on the Mississippi again! We walked for a while and checked out the steamboat and listened to the steam organ peform some neat old songs. We went back to the hotel to check in and digest our food a bit, and the kids spent some time in the pool, testing out their snorkeling equipment and the underwater capabilities of the camera while I sat close by and posted our last blog entry on Memphis!

Later on, we went out to check out the New Orleans night life, but Mateo became his usual albatross-like self (too much time in the pool?) and we had to literally drag him along with us. After walking around for a while it became clear that we would need some help avoiding the tacky tourist trappings of this place, so we asked a few "locals" (hard to tell who is local and who is transplanted - alot of people seem to move here from all over the place) where to get good and cheap traditional food. A couple of different people mentioned "Coop's" place, so we headed over there only to find that they don't allow minors. We decided to order the food to take out, and had a jambalaya and gumbo feast in our hotel room while Mateo watched Jurassic Park 3 and The Mummy Returns (at the same time - don't you just love remote controls?). The gumbo was a spicy and delicious stew with okra, crawdaddies and shrimp, and the jambalaya was a rice dish, kind of like a paella, with rabbit sausage (sorry to all you buny fans), chicken and veggies. I have always wanted to try a real gumbo, and even though I ate it out of a styrofoam container with a plastic spoon I enjoyed it immensely!

Tomorrow we will try to go to the Cafe du Monde for coffee and biegnets (sort of like tortas fritas or beaver tails?) http://www.cafedumonde.com/main.html before taking off. I am not sure how far we will get, but now we just want to think about heading into Mexico!