Finally, after many more days than we had anticipated, we moved from New Orleans to the Cajun Coast to the southwest.
The trip to the vicinity of Morgan City takes 1h30.
We accomplish this by peculiar highways, built above flooded areas that sometimes run parallel to, sometimes cross rivers, canals, bayous (river branches, secondary and swampy rivers), lakes, reservoirs and others.
A showcase of the myriad bodies of water that keep southern Louisiana in an obvious amphibious state.
Elevated highway above Lake Fausse
A little before five in the afternoon, we arrived at a property on the bank of a bayou known as Teche.
The Host of Atchafalaya Captain Caviar
Vanessa, the host from the Morgan region introduces us to John Burke, the founder, helmsman and guide of Captain Caviar Swamp Tours, a company that even “one man show”, had achieved enviable notoriety.
As his nickname suggests, John created it following another unusual business, the sale of caviar obtained from amia, a native fish whose eggs are comparable to those of caviar consumed in Russia and the rest of Europe.
John was supposed to take us, by boat, through the wetlands of the Atchafalaya River basin, from his home dock and base of operations. After the greetings, he proposes activities that we hadn't expected. “Do you know something else? My mother lives in a big, old house, close to mine. A ghost appeared to him in the kitchen.
Additionally, a voodoo priest detected three spirits hanging from a tree just ahead.” The suggestion came in the wake of several approaches and forays into the paranormal world, debuted in New Orleans, including a night tour of the Big Easy cemeteries. It would be repeated almost everywhere we cover in Louisiana.
There, where we were, we were interested, above all, in the unusual and intimidating nature that surrounded us. But the paranormal has become an almost obligatory source of popularity and profit for those who work in tourism in the Pelican State.
It seemed to cost John the disregard we showed for the ghostly attractions he suggested. John Burke therefore chooses to confront us with some of the American TV titles that had dedicated programs, episodes and the like to them.
Captain Caviar himself is present in the episode “Blue Shirt of Idlewild", in "Ghosts of Morgan City”, a fantasy series that presents itself with the following synopsis: “after a spike in unusual emergency calls in Morgan City, the city mayor and the local police chief recruit a team of paranormal experts to investigate the bizarre supernatural activity.”
On a more mundane level, Captain Caviar also welcomed Troy Landry, the star protagonist of the series “Swamp People” recurring, at least, on the History channel and in Portuguese. It was another type of program that was far from seducing us.
Discovering the Atchafalaya Basin and Swamp
With the sun dropping below the horizon and a vast territory to explore, Captain Caviar nods. We boarded and set sail in three steps.
John Burke, better known as Captain Caviar, displays hyacinths
First, to bayou Teche. Soon, to the extension of the Lower Atchafalaya, the original course of the river, diverted for the safety of the towns that grew on its banks.
On this route, the right bank contrasts with the opposite.
The one at Captain Caviar's headquarters is developed, full of riverside mansions with large backyards, or tiny farms served by jetties and docks.
Houseboat, Atchafalaya Basin, Louisiana
This is followed by Bayou Vista, Glenwild and Berwick, a city separated from Morgan City by the Atchafalaya, all towns that are proud of their past and history.
The Indigenous and Colonial Past of the Region
Berwick, in particular, honors Thomas Berwick, the first white settler to explore these parts, at the end of the 18th century, at a time when the native Chitimacha (translated as people of the many waters) dominated them, today, concentrated in an Indian reservation located in the his original domains from Bayou Chene, upstream the Atchafalaya River and Swamp.
The exclusivity of the Chitimacha and, to the south, the Atakapa tribe ended around 1755. Then, the British triumphed over the French at the top of the Americas. They expelled their settlers from immense Acadia, today part of Canada.
At the end of a wandering that became known as “Le Grand Derangement”, some Acadian survivors arrived in this deep south of the United States, meanwhile dominated by the French. Despite the marshy inhospitality of the region, they managed to find ways of subsistence.
Flooded trees across the Atchafalaya River Basin and Swamp
They paved the way for many more newcomers, the ancestors of America's vast Cajun community.
The Canals, Bayous, and Endless Atchafalaya Swamp
We reached the levee that separates the Lower Atchafalaya from the main flow of the river.
It is one of hundreds that Louisiana authorities have built to control the flow level, the flow of water and species, in the Atchafalaya basin, considered the largest wetland in the United States.
John Burke receives permission for us to cross the dike. We furrowed a carpet of water hyacinths, invasive, as they are in so many other flooded areas around the world. face of the earth.
From there, we saw the bridge that connects Morgan City to Berwick.
Berwick Dike, Atchafalaya River
We bend north, towards a meander where the river flows between waterlogged islands, Morgan, Little, others.
We get a more comprehensive view of the unique flora and fauna of the Atchafalaya basin and marsh.
Black ibis on a cypress sapling.
It is, however, when Captain Caviar takes us through canals and bayous derivatives and points us to Duck Lake, where the scenarios approach, define and impress us without appeal.
Until then, certain areas revealed the stain of thousands of cedar and oak stumps.
Electrical supply network, Lake Fausse
The Age-old Stumps, Taints of the Atchafalaya Swamp
They are part of a more complex legacy of logging that sustained the expansion of settlers in the Deep South of the USA, due to its aquatic and wild inaccessibility, late in the region, where it only intensified at the end of the 20th century.
By 1920, settlers had already cleared the nearest and most profitable forests.
The decrease in demand and the first environmental protection efforts dictated an abrupt end to tree cutting.
Cypress trees above a bayou
Thus, considerable pockets of ancient rainforest remain, mysterious and oppressive in their density and antiquity.
A sign we came across translates, in rhyme, the mysticism of that swamp.
It seems to justify the TV shows dedicated to its alleged supernaturalism:
"Ghosts are around and maybe a Vampire. Especially with fog on the Lower Atchafalaya".
Plaque with poem, river and Atchafalaya swamp, in the Berwick area
We sailed under curtains of old man's beard, undulating and shining.
In the imminence of cypress shoots that appear next to the grooved trunks of adult specimens.
Cypress roots, Atchafalaya River,
Natives of Cajun descent call them knees (knees).
In the absence of wind, these shoots contribute to an aquatic reflection that doubles the eccentricity and beauty of the landscape.
Flocks of black ibises, ospreys and alligators with flashing eyes are the most obvious proofs of a furtive but prolific animal life.
Alligator, Lake Fausse, Atchafalaya
By that time, we had already realized how rare the people of southern Louisiana were to conform to mere natural reality.
John Burke makes a point of remembering this. “This, as it gets darker, gets scarier.
The Rougarou Phenomenon and the Inaugural Filming of Tarzan
You never know when one will appear rougarou”. John Burke confirms that we were intrigued. She and she rejoices.
In the colonial and Acadian genesis of the 18th state of the USA, the wild and mythical creature is described as having the head of a wolf or dog and a human body, somewhat like a werewolf. John Burke introduces us, however, to an unexpected variant.
“Do you know that, in 1917, they came here to film the first “Tarzan of the Apes” ? (n. of A. – based on the work of Edgar Rice Burroughs).
Imagine what an adventure it wasn’t, here in the midst of alligators, with malaria everywhere… Well, it’s said that they let chimpanzees escape, that they adapted to this jungle and turned into monsters.”
Old man's beards in an Atchafalaya swamp
We then imagine ape-like rougarous, instead of werewolves, emerging from behind the shadowy forest and the veils of old men's beards.
With the sun disappearing to the west of the flooded forest, under the pretext of difficulty in navigation and with no intention of risking encounters with rougarous, John takes us out of there.
Along a so-called Dog Island Pass, to the once again wide and open setting of Flat Lake that would allow us to enjoy the sunset, behind “islands” of providential cypress trees.
We ask Captain Caviar for some extra patience.
It moved forward and backward, depending on our search for certain frames.
We improve them until we consider them worthy of that unforgettable place.
Cypress forest, with the sunset in the west, Atchafalaya
Darkness dictates a late but stimulating retreat.
After all, they were waiting for us Baton Rouge, the capital of Louisiana. Morgan City and an entire intriguing Cajun-Acadian domain.
HOW TO GO
Book the flight Lisbon – Miami (Florida), United States, with TAP: flytap.com for from €820. From Miami, you can take the connection to Lafayette (2h) for, from €150, round trip.
Book your activities in the Atchafalaya Basin and Swamp with Captain Caviar Swamp Tours: captaincaviar.com;
Whats App: +1 98 599 25 383[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
