New Orleans Day 5: Swamp Tour through Cajun Encounters

Note: Eventually, I will finish this trip recap. Preferably before we go on another trip. I have about a month...

By Sunday, we were ready to get out of the city. Fortunately, we had plans to do just that! We grabbed one last breakfast at the hotel, and then walked to the car rental place on Canal Street. It was only a 1/2 mile walk, but felt longer dragging all our gear in the hot sun. Yes, the sun finally came out in full force for the last two days of our trip.

We rented a car from Budget as they were the only rental company nearby our hotel that was open on Sunday morning. It was not exactly a fantastic experience. The car was a pile (a Toyota or something gross), had lots of miles on it, and New York plates so we felt extra touristy. We were there by 10:15, and after checking-in, we had to wait outside for 15 minutes before it even arrived for us. We were finally on the road to Slidell, LA (I recognized them name from Swamp People) by 10:40.

On the schedule for the day was a swamp tour just northeast of New Orleans, followed by plantations northwest of New Orleans. Before leaving the room, Adam called and made a reservation for us through Cajun Encounters. I had quite the dilemma deciding what company to do our swamp tour through. I found that most offered significant savings if you transported yourself to the site (usually only $25 per person vs $50). Then the big dilemma was which swamp to tour. I finally settled on Honey Island as it was said to be the most picturesque, and then selected the tour company (Cajun Encounters) because their tour times fit our schedule best. I was a little stressed about this whole thing, but it ended up working fine. They had multiple boats that went out at the noon tour time, so we could have just showed up without a reservation and been fine.

It was an easy 45 minute drive from New Orleans, and allowed us to see some interesting things from the highway like the 9th Ward, which was hit hard by Hurricane Katrina, and a huge bridge over Lake Pontchartrain.

We were a little early for the tour, so we made a brief stop at a little bayou along the road. I wandered down the boardwalk and took a few photos. It was nice just be out in the sun!

At Cajun Encounters, we checked in, and waited for our noon tour to start. The tour went out on a flat bottomed pontoon boat. Our guide was interesting and had a strong accent - it was like being on Swamp People. He had even filled his 3 gator tags this year!

We were hoping to see some gators, but weren't expecting it as this is their dormant season.

Luckily, one of the first things we saw was a baby gator.

Our guide found another small gator laying in the rushes.

Then, we hit the jackpot! We got to see a pretty large gator laying in the water soaking up the sun. It was really cool!

The next part of the tour was to go by some Cajun houses. It was interesting to see how people adapted their homes to live down here with the constant threat of hurricanes and flooding.

This is a shrimping boat -

The second part of our tour was to go deep in the swamp which required us to go through a narrow pass.

We even saw a few raccoons!

This is what I always pictured the swamp to look like. It was beautiful.

The Spanish Moss dripping from the trees was lovely, but apparently you don't want to touch it. It's home to all kinds of nasty bugs!

On our way back, we saw a bunch of turtles sunning on a log.

We both really enjoyed the 2 hour tour. It was through a private swamp, so I appreciated that the wildlife (including gators) there couldn't be hunted. However, I wasn't too keen on how the tour guides gave marshmallows to the racoons (and the gators in the summer) to engage them for the tourists. This isn't part of their natural diet, and makes them dependent on humans. Ick.

After the tour, we had planned to cross the border to Mississippi (only 3.4 miles away!), but completely forgot because we were hungry. We grabbed a quick lunch at McDonald's in Slidell, and then headed back towards New Orleans and on to Oak Alley Plantation. I was crushed when I realized we had forgotten!