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Intro
These are the times it doesn’t rain but it pours! Why did it always pour in New Orleans? In California, it rains like once every century! Why did nobody prepare me for this? I got soaked like my right-hand scuba dived! But, uh, yeah how about that bayou though? SWAMP TOUR!
Keep going!
With any prized destination for a trip, there are specific areas that come along with it as must visits. For a visit to Louisiana, the swamp perfectly fits this category! And New Orleans, though the state’s biggest city, enjoys access to several Louisiana swamps, providing rewarding day trips. So, you know what that means! Tour time!
don’t give up!
There are many different options for tours into the Louisiana Bayou! However, today we will use our bloodshot eyes to gaze upon the one I took while in the Big Easy to the Honey Island Swamp! I will review it in 3… 2… actually, before I learn what comes before 2, I gotta say remember to click the thing below to find the tour in Question! 1!
Basic Info
This swamp tour comes with a few different options. It departs throughout the day so you can choose whichever interval suits you best, with spots ranging from 7:30 am to 5:00 pm. However, the specific details depend on if you need to be picked up or will travel with self-transport. The biggest difference is the price as it goes from $32 for self-transport to $60 for pickup. If you choose the latter, the site offers several pickup locations around New Orleans, mostly hotels, so choose whichever is closest and just wait for your turn and the big van to arrive!
everything will get better!
The tour is a boat tour around the Honey Island Swamp, lasting about 2 hours minus the one-hour time it takes to cross Lake Pontchartrain to the swamp itself and then back to the city. On the way there, if you’re taking the pickup mobile, you’ll be regaled with stories about the region and playful disses at the stereotypical swamp culture. The mention of the show Swamp People made my heart swoon, just to give a clue as to what I mean!
What to Bring
During the tour, you stop at a gift shop-type place to check in before all the action starts, so you can purchase snacks, water, and other trinkets and souvenirs while there. I would recommend, some water, bug repellent, sunscreen, and perhaps a little swig of Moonshine. Gotta shout out the classic Ragin’ Cajun Redneck Gators! A hat as well if you feel like it. The point is it’s hot but that’s about it. Everything else is nicely taken care of for you!
there’s always a brighter tomorrow!
- Sunscreen
- Bug Repellent
- Water
- Ragin’ Cajun Redneck Gators on Blu-Ray
Thoughts Going In
As I prepared for this swamp tour, I originally endeavored to seek out a Voodoo Queen in the heart of the Bayou, convinced they would be more authentic there than in the commercialized touristy New Orleans. However, my friends advised me against it. See kiddies, another reason friends are overrated! Like Denmark! So blame them for this post’s lack of Voodoo Queens!
do it for you!
Nevertheless, I was excited and ready for adventure. Conversely, I was nervous about the prevalence of bugs and the possibility of not seeing the crown jewel of the bayou, the alligator! After spending $60 on the trip, the prospect of not seeing the great reptilian swamp scourge would have broken someone’s heart. Not mine mind you. I’m a real one (allegedly). I don’t get my heart broken by gators. The fuck wrong with you? Aside from this, I was hoping to have my swamp stereotypes either confirmed or rejected. And with all these swirling thoughts ingrained in my membrane, I let myself get lost in the tour…
Swampy Swamp Stuff aka the Tour aka the things that happened in the Swamp aka Honey Island time aka the whole reason for this
We begin entering these little roofed motorboats. In my group, there were maybe 12 people in total. Our boat driver taught us about the swamp culture in the area, such as the history, the lifestyle of people who live there, and of course the wildlife. The boat zoomed past lines and lines of beautiful trees and the scene enriched all senses with its grandeur, popping right out of a movie set in the Deep South. The roar of the boat was quite loud but never deafening. Even the heat was truthfully blocked by the boat’s roof. Hell, there weren’t even any insects trying to massacre us onboard!
Best of all, we saw them! Not one alligator! Not two! Idk like 12 or something! There was a lot! Baby gators, adult gators! Gators relying on social security or their pension! The whole nine! But there were twelve! It was my favorite moment! Made all the better by the brilliant landscape around us and the gentle yet endearing words of the driver. You’re never in danger in the boat, no matter how close the gators are. We’re high above the water. I mean, if you wanna dip your hand in, who knows what’ll happen but if you actually don’t wanna immediately oof yourself then this is perfectly safe!
look at the positives!
The alligators look surprisingly nonchalant, as they swim by. I want to stress these are still powerful, vicious, and dangerous animals! However, just looking at them from the boat, I felt no fear, no intimidation. You wouldn’t suspect any type of menace from them. I should have known that we would see alligators as the boat driver was feeding them some unidentifiable substances, idk what but he threw bits of food into the water to willingly draw in the alligators, ensuring we’d be able to see a fair amount of them!
Not only were we lucky to bear witness to a multitude of alligators, but we also managed to spot small turtles and birds whose names I forgot but you can see there! Birds leave in the comments if you know who that one is btw! And most memorably, a family of raccoons who just tried to mind their business and do Raccoon things, when our boat driver tried to set them up for execution by making them duke it out with a young gator for food! You can see it in the Instagram link at the start! Luckily, no animals suffered in the making of this post. The raccoons proved they were smarter than my cat by escaping imminent peril and sacrificing the food scraps to the gator in exchange for another day to coon in peace.
be grateful!
The boat driver even revealed that it’s the snapping turtle, not the alligator, whom you really have to worry about. He’s from the bayou. He knows. Their aggression is unmatched… except by things that match their aggression. Oh, snap! Nevertheless, for the rest of the boat journey, we observed manmade structures like docks and bridges before we inevitably turned around, passing by several incoming boats as we did so. That was about it as we then proceeded back onto the bus and stuff. I forgot to mention that life jackets are an option if you want them. I didn’t though! I’m a Hard boy! I ain’t got no life!
Afterthoughts
Personally, I feel as though I definitely got my money’s worth with this tour! I came in only really having three goals in mind, those being to see alligators, see the beautiful swamp landscape and hear the bayou accent! All of which I can now check off my bucket list for good!
I wanna include the site again to reiterate how grateful I am to them for the tour. I didn’t mention it too much here, but the tour operators were very welcoming and entertaining. They’re both incredibly funny and vastly insightful. You learn a lot while laughing a lot, which is a perfect combination if you ask me. If I had any gripes I guess it would just be that the trip was too short! But that really just speaks to its greatness!
In Conclusion
I’m not sure what else there is to say about this tour. It was great! It was fun, insightful and a good getaway from the loud craziness of the city! If you get the chance then, you’ve gotten the chance! And if you’ve got the chance, then you gotta go! And if you don’t go, at least leave a nice comment under here! That would be nicer than rice! Thanks for reading this shit! And remember, put some respect on the name of Cajun Encounters! Bye bye bye bye!
If I could sum this up in one phrase, I’d have to relinquish my speech to my forefathers. It’s as my great great great great decent grandfather once said:
When the Bayou come, the little girls run…
#Bars
