I was in New Orleans for a conference and checked off some things on my list that I always wanted to do (Preservation Hall Jazz, the World War II Museum, lunch at Cafe Amelie). Still, I found myself with an unencumbered Sunday afternoon in June, and thought to myself, "I've never seen a Cajun guy feed marshmallows to an alligator in the swamp, so maybe I should do that!" I have a special affinity for Louisianan swamps and Cajuns since that's where my father came from. This would mean I am half Cajun, obviously. (The half that likes spicy food, but not the half that is allergic to shellfish.) My father lived on the bayou not far from where this swamp tour would happen (LaFourche Parish) until he was about eight years old. He mentioned it often: pelicans and egrets, alligators and crawfish, sugar cane and molasses.
Okay, truth be told, I had no idea alligators like to eat marshmallows and that Cajuns like to toss them to alligators, but I found this out on the Swamp Tour. Our guide, Captain Reggie,
narrated a very informative (and fun) tour of the swamp. Bayous, he explained, are naturally-occurring thoroughfares through the swamp while canals are man-made ones. There is marshland in the swamp, too. So, the swamp, as they define it here, is the whole ecosystem which includes bayous, canals, and marshes.
We rode on a flat-bottomed boat almost exactly like the Salt Marsh Safari boat I'm familiar with in Cape May.
My ride
Other visitors were riding on large and small fan boats, but these things are noisy. As Captain Reggie explained, "You wouldn't learn anything."
A smaller fan boat (noisy)
A larger fan boat (noisier)
This swamp is in Jean LaFitte National Historic Park and Preserve, specifically the Barataria Preserve. We saw trees, moss, dragonflies, and yes, ALLIGATORS. Early in the ride we saw a small alligator swimming around by himself, and he came right over to the boat. Captain Reggie explained that alligators don't see the white marshmallows he tosses, but they feel the vibrations when it hits the water. Besides luring the alligators closer to us, those marshmallows allow us to see the reptile chomp down on something not alive (like a tourist).
The first reptile we encountered
We toured through some interesting heat-tolerant flora on our way through the swamp to see even more marshmallow-eating alligators. The stuff hanging from trees is sphagnum moss, and according to Captain Reggie, "Yankees actually buy that stuff." Yes, he's right, once or twice my non-Cajun Yankee side actually bought that stuff for various craft projects. It is used to stuff boat cushions, too.
Sphagnum moss hanging from tree
It looks tropical...
At one point on the tour, we passed a Cajun graveyard. One of Captain Reggie's grandmothers is in there, and he confirmed what I always suspected: when the area floods, the coffins can pop out of the ground and float around. I stopped listening at this point because I have nightmares about my long-dead ancestors floating around in their coffins during catastrophic floods. I started listening again when the Captain told us that the hill in the middle of the cemetery is an ancient Native American burial mound going back to 500AD.
At one point during our tour, Captain Reggie found a breezy spot to stop and give the boat a rest. From out of a closet that none of us had noticed, he brought out his companion, Elvis, a baby alligator. Cool enough to see one up close, but each of us got to hold it. (Kids got to wear Elvis on their heads.) I did hold Elvis, and here follows photographic proof. He squirmed a little, but more interestingly made soft little sounds almost like a dove cooing.
Margaret and Elvis (profile)
Elvis, straight-on
Finally, we saw alligators. I counted seven simultaneously swimming around our boat and grabbing whatever marshmallows they could.
See the marshmallow about to be eaten?
This was a fabulous tour in spite of the June Louisiana heat. Of course it was going to be hot, and I did the best I could dressing comfortably and sipping my water. My big worry had been mosquitoes, so I bought a yellow spiral bracelet which was supposed to form a forcefield around me unpenetrable by mosquitoes who love me. I can't tell you if the bracelet worked, but I can tell you no one else was complaining about mosquitoes.
After I was delivered back to my New Orleans hotel, I Googled Captain Reggie. He said some Disney movie character was named after him, and I was curious about that: Ray in "The Princess and the Frog"? I'm way behind on Disney movies, but I found something even more interesting. Here's Captain Reggie himself (the "Alligator Whisperer") feeding marshmallows to alligators on someone else's tour. You can hear him saying "Ici!" ('here' in French) to the reptiles. Now why didn't I take a video???
