24 Hours in NOLA (USA Day 151)

We began the day slowly again, getting rather used to the feeling of not having to climb straight onto a bike after breakfast. Better not get too used to it: we leave again tomorrow.

In the meantime, more New Orleans. After some vegan okra gumbo and cornbread, we happened upon St Louis Cemetery #2, which is the same as St Louis Cemetery #1 but one better. In a city where the ground is regularly saturated by river water, you really shouldn’t bury people underground. It’d be wet for them. So the colonial French communities traditionally buried their dead in ornate and sombre mausoleums packed in tight grids that take up multiple city blocks. We wandered up and down the grid of departed, reading the names, viewing with fascination which families continued to maintain the tombs, and which had let them crumble.

One skull was visible. A man reached in and touched it. The man was not me.

Hovering over the cemetery, a huge sign blared about the $130m jackpot for this week’s lottery. The majority of the sign’s target audience probably wouldn’t have much need of all that money.

We wandered once again into the French quarter, this time for Café Du Monde’s world famous (really, this time) beignets: fairground donuts dredged in powdered sugar, served with coffee and roast chicory brewed into a latte. Eating this treat involved covering ourselves all-over in sugar, then wiping it off again. In the time it took us to achieve this, the money-grabbing troupe from yesterday had appeared again. It turns out, they were street dancers, but we still couldn’t tell having now seen the beginning twenty minutes of their show. This comprised of standing in a line, slightly bent over with hands on knees, playing bursts of music and occasionally shouting, “IT’S SHOWTIME!”

It never was showtime. I wonder if they ever do any dancing, or the whole show aims to make the audience think they’ve just missed the good bit.

In the evening, we fetched our bikes and cycled to Kermit’s Treme Mother In Law Lounge Jazz Club, a title requiring some analysis. Kermit Ruffins is a local celebrity, an elder statesman of the New Orleans music scene, well-known in the Jazz community, who owns a bunch of local businesses. Every night he’ll be found in this bar, stoned out of his mind, where he’ll play a set with his in-house band and welcome a few guest musicians on for a few numbers. The show was a joy, the audience receptive (sometimes too receptive. One woman felt it her job to affirm the good jazz bits with a hearty “Yes Sir!” Then, when Kermit’s daughter did a turn, “Yes Maam! YES MAAM!”)

No matter how long you’re in New Orleans, you’ll never see enough music, try enough creole food, walk past enough quaint houses. Two days was just a start. We’ll leave tomorrow, but we’ll have to come back soon. I love this place. Yes SIR!