New Orleans, The Big Easy in the Garden District

We arrive at New Orleans, back into the humidity and the heat.

The city is lush. It is scented with magnolia grandiflora trees. Resurrection ferns coat oak branches, verdant and strong, coaxed back into life by the downpours.  Spanish moss drapes from trees. Everywhere is green and lush, tropical. The swamps may be gone, but they are held at bay,  just beneath the surface. You can take the city out of the bayou but you can’t take the  bayou out of the city. 

The city tempts with all its finery but Mother Nature’s instincts are strong.  It only needs a storm, the breach of something manmade and it will discard its finery, drop its clothes and  return to its  steamy swamp heritage.  New Orleans with its wooden and brick houses seems as fragile as the iron lace filigree of its verandas. Its essence is the steamy humidity, the quiet danger of the bayou. The streets are home to Jazz musicians, tarot card readers, the cast of Pirates of the Caribbean and countless vampire films but squint and you half expect to see an alligator lumbering through the shadows. 

We attempt to explore but it is hot, so hot, so humid that in seconds clothes are damp with sweat. The heat drains all energy. I’ve gone off dairy. Gone are my usual caffé lattes now it’s a shot of coffee, maybe a long one, topped with ice.  My top lip is perpetually covered in sweat, mascara slides off and scrunched up hair never gets dry.

I dawdle  where shop doors open and release cool drafts of air-conditioned air onto baking hot streets. Buildings act like batteries absorbing heat during the day, reflecting it out at night.  Buses and street cars offer cooler air. We need aircon, rehydrating and live music. 

At Fritzel’s https://fritzelsjazz.com we listen to Jazz. In the break the musicians join us at the bar. Above the bar the TV is on a perpetual weather warning.  Red crescents of boiling clouds arch across maps. Others in the bar mutter and suck their teeth. The TV urges us to have an evacuation plan. 

But in England neither the weather nor the wildlife sets out to kill us  so we have no idea – should we hide under the stairs, but be drowned in a flood,  or go high but then the roof could be torn off?Are we supposed to shut all windows or open them so the air pressure can balance itself? Do they mean in general or now this second? We remember what Hurricane Katrina did to New Orleans.  Having left the unseasonal tornadoes that killed 18 behind we know we should take these things seriously. We don’t want to be the idiots that heroes have to rescue.

‘Should we be worried?’ we ask the bass player whose eyes are glued to the forecast.

‘It’s hot for this time of year’ he says ‘The temperatures in the Gulf are already too high- there will be big  hurricanes this season’ 

‘But do we need to do anything …now?’

‘Nah, they’ll tell you to evacuate if there’s a problem. Where y’all from?’

Noting that everyone is aware, but not worried, we dive into the vibe and enjoy doing nothing  GS drinks beers, me the sour lemonades and the occasional cocktail.

The sky goes steel grey then black.  Flashes of lightning are frequent, followed by low rolling thunder. We count the seconds that separate.  It gets closer until there are flashes and instant deafening claps all around us. Rain pelts down bouncing of the road, overwhelming the gutters.

I love the storms.  Does it get more romantic than listening to live Jazz in Fritzels while the storm rages outside, wondering whether anyone would notice if I just slipped outside? 

It is all I can do to stop myself standing under a torrent pouring from a gutter, standing drenched in rain water, dancing with lightening and thunder drums.