deep south warmth and friendliness

since arriving on new years eve in New Orleans, we've been overwhelmed by the friendly faces, generous people, tasty food, inspiring music and welcoming arms of Louisiana and Texas. This is the deep south... and for us so far - it's been wonderful!

First it was a foggy morning of exploration of city park (bigger than New York's central park) around our couchsurfing host's house - Louis, in midcity, then concocting up a really tasty "bayou orzo" - a jambalaya inspired boudin (spicy cajun sausage) and shrimp (prawn) risotto like pasta, and then off to the friendliest pub so far in the states - Finn McCools to celebrate Irish New Year at 6pm. FInn's was like coming home to family - a place that makes me want to go hang out there 4 times a week, watch games and play trivia and just chat and relax with friends. We also got to see a Saints (local football team) game against the Panthers on New Years Day, as well as... Philipe winning the pot luck with his goulash with a beautiful golden wooden spoon for the occasion.. as well as I got to be the furthest visitor for Monday night trivia.

Louis' shotgun house and early morning fog

An art piece - the braclets that are thrown for mardi gras - they are all over fences, trees, statues around the city

Finn McCools and Louis and Philipe for NYE

NYE local fireworks

New Orleans is still recovering after Katrina... the people are so passionate about their city, and proud of their recovery. One of the pertinent reminders were the military house markings that designated the date they checked to see it had been evacuated, and whether there were any survivors found there. The houses and architecture in general is also incredibly unique - beautiful timber detailing of porches, a sort of combination of big imitation greek/italianite finishes, crossed with quaint french/european/romantic shutters and doors, all raised for responding to the floodline.

Beautiful houses on St Charles Avenue

Reminds me of a similar frontage in Valpariso near the capital of Chile, Santiago

The cross marking is from Katrina - the top with the date and time, the right hand box with whether there was an answer, and then the bottom with no of people there

And then... the food. Don't worry... although we're coming back at the end of the month with my cousin and Philipe's mother, we also got some good food in! Shrimp po-boys, black eyed peas, friend green tomatoes, crab cakes, gumbo, beignets (like a mini doughnut) ... as well as local micro brews and great coffee. We didn't hit the music scene as hard as we could have... but still got treated to local jazz on NYE and will head to some local haunts when we return.

Tucking into boiled cajun crayfish

Shrimp po-boy at Park Tavern

so what's surprised us about being the states? well... huge portion sizes, drinkable tap water served, doggybagging everything!, MASSIVE cars and driving lanes, people who smile back at you when you smile at them, great service, HUGE supermarkets, toilets you can flush toilet paper down, a multistorey maze of freeways, traffic, having to calculate tax and tips, well equipped tourist info centres, outdoor shops (heaven!) and a great spread of multicultural-ness. odd what you notice hey!

Obviously needed for city driving

couchsurfing is always an amazing way to be introduced to a different side of a city - and this held true for new orleans with Louis, and also Lafayette with John and Becky Williams (and of course their gorgeous Wheaten terrier, Boone!) On our first night in Lafayette at John and Becky's house we met Harold, a 70 something year old wonderfully inspirational man! He treated us to wonderful alligator catching stories, showed us his geothermal heating/cooling system utilising his pool (advanced for the 1970s), treated us to a pile of fresh caught boiled crabs, and introduced us to an Arcadian historian (the people around New Orleans came from Arcadia in Canada, a French community. In fact, some families still speak a very strong French Arcadian dialect only found in Arcadia and Lafayette) who had... 1940s sidecars! Totally awesome to see... and for Philipe - to don riding goggles and take a spin in the sidecar.

Boiling fresh crabs at Harold's house in Lafayette

Time to eat!

Olivier's 1940s BMW copy sidecar

Another one he was restoring

In Lafayette we also met Skip - one of the employees in John and Becky's store - the Pack and Paddle. I've never met someone more passionate about Australian culture - and to top it off - he plays the didgeridoo! If anyone should visit Australia and Arnhem Land... it's Skip. Yet another person we met that made our visit so special. There was also the Great Western Bakery and Cafe Cohen... if I lived in Lafayette, I'd live in that bakery and cafe. (by the way the best choc chip cookie since 5 years ago at the sourdough bakery on darlinghurst road in Sydney)

Oh yes. The best cookie since sourdough bakery

From Lafayette we left Louisiana to hit Texas! Oh yes, we've eaten tex-mex and bbq, visited the Alamo (the place which resulted in Texas being a republic and in fact Texas the only US state that can choose to leave the USA and for this they are fiercely proud) and arrived yesterday in Austin. Here there are granolas (health concious sort of yuppies), fixies (people who ride old school road bikes), dames (the older higher society ladies) and all sorts.... Everyone we met prior to arriving here raved about Austin, and it definitely has a great vibe about it... somewhere you can be many things yet still enjoy living outside (they have uber hot weather in summer), great food carts, live music and places to enjoy life.

Brisket in Austin at Ruby BBQ

Tomorrow we leave all the material decadence behind and head to a pure sort of decadence, no talking, no contact with the outside world, just pure introspective reflection through meditation. I have no idea how I will react - after all I thrive on being physically active, think mainly when in dialogue with others, and find it hard to be contemplative on my own. How will I fare? I guess... we will see. How will it feel? How will I deal with the feelings I'll encounter? How might I change? How will I come out on the other end?

You'll just have to wait until after the 22nd to find out... as will I !

So.. signing off from a night of motel decadence in Austin before segregation and silence starting tomorrow....
big hugs to all!
susanxo

sweatbox riding through jesuit mission country

first i should say that I'm very glad I have new kick ass motorcross boots, new jacket with shoulder/elbow/back protection, and a new beefed up helmet, but man, riding through 32 degree heat on the edge of the Amazon, really sucks. when you're going fast enough into some warm blasts of oncoming wind, it's ok, but as soon as you stop - bam, the sweat starts trickling down and creating a mini portable steamroom.

In full kit - trying to smile. stopping is worse as there's NO wind to at least dry some of the beading sweat

Blown palm trees in the rolling landscape

The bell tower (entirely out of wood) outside the church in Concepcion

for 3 days we've been riding through rolling agruictulral lands graced with windswept palmtrees, dry, dusty towns teeming with motorbikes (that frequenty run out of fuel) and visiting two old Jesuit Mission towns - Concepcion and San Javier. It's an interesting combination, the Jesuits (according to my Lonely Planet) had quite a good go at integrating and combing the western and indigenous cultures; they taught a lot of woodworking skills which is very evident in the beautiful carved mission churches, streching collandes and courtyard design for houses. music was also very important, and addition to setting up instrument making workshops they instilled music education (admittedly a western one) which is still evident today with children learning violins and other string instruments. In Ascension I walked past a school with a group of early teen boys practicing violins! Every 5 mins or so groups of girls would stop and walk in interupting and joking around with them - I wonder whether it is 'cool' to play an instrument here? I also got to play :) and makes me realise how much I wish I had my violin around to strum out some tunes on.

This is HALF of the motorbike line waiting for fuel ... most are carrying 10L gallons after 3 days without fuel

we've been trying to get a bit of a routiine of leaving early and stopping in the mid afternoon to explore the town and relax. it's tempting to have a relaxing morning; breakfast, sleeping in, but thankfully it's actually too hot to sleep past about 7am. Riding between 8-12pm is infinitely more comfortable than 12=4pm, and It's also nce to feel that you've got somewhere by 11am. lunch is usually snacking, and once arriving, de-peeling and jumping in the shower, it's either time to cook or seek out some delicious fried meat, fried vegetables, fried rice or fried something to fill the tummy.

I'm very small but resting after trying to climb up the frame.

actually on the way here we passed through a town called Okinawa - yes the same as the Japanese island - after WW2 some Japanese families came and settled north of Santa Cruz, creating Okinawa I, Okinawa II and Okinawa III. Inventive huh! They are still a very Japanese culture today as well - and the best thing for me? we came across a store with japanese and koren foods, including wakame (dried seaweed), somen (silky noodles), an pan (bread with red bean paste - my mother loves this for breakfast), yokan (sweet red bean paste), kare-gohan (curry rice), okaki (rice crackers) and well all sorts of delights. Pretty damn fine, and what this means is that tonight, instead of the usual local or camping fare, we had somen noodles with vegetables. Total treat - not just for the different flavours, but for me, something that reminded me of home.

Tucking into somen (japanese noodles)

we're averaging about 230kms a day, and yesterday we did about 250kms to Trinidad. Once a year they do quite a lot of burning off to clear/renew agricultural lands, and so we ended up riding through a lot of smoke. We also had some nice stops and side visits - one to a swamp/lake, and other we happened to pass one of the animal refuge parks of Inti Wari Yasi - and got to see some toucans! (and lots of foreginer volunteers).

Typical house on the way to Trinidad - with thatched palm tree women roof

Laguna Corazon - now we're getting into the jungle!

Riding through haze of the smoke from the yearly burning off

The route yesterday is starting to feel more lush and jungle-like - we're now in Trinidad looking for a boat to take us upstream into the jungle proper - and also meeting up with Jennifer - a girl who we met at the Arbole de Piedra who is working for an aid organisation for clean water installation and education. It's definitely hot and stifling here - am I going to survive the jungle I wonder?