We are Strangers in a Strange Land

One of the best things about travel is experiencing new places and cultures with fresh eyes. Bike travel, especially, allows us to immerse ourselves in the American landscape. However, some places we ride through are so incredibly unique and all their own, you almost feel like you’re in a foreign land.

Louisiana is one of those places.

To help show how different it is here, we put together the following list. It hits on the unfamiliar, strange, and beautiful things that we’ve encountered on our ride. All distinctly Louisianan.

Daiquiri drive-thrus.
Strange but true. I heard anecdotally that since the frozen beverage is served in a styrofoam cup—with the paper on the top of the straw—that it’s technically not an open container. Thus making it legal. (Of course people aren’t going to drink while they’re driving.) But it’s nice to know that people can stay cool with a frozen beverage on a hot summer day. Or any day for that matter.

Gators.
They’re everywhere. You can buy gator meat at the market. You can hold a gator at the Gator Chateau. We ride by gator roadkill every day. And several locals we met told us about how they swam in the bayou with gators all the time. It’s no big deal here. On the university campus in Lafayette, there are five gators in the Cypress Lake. (Because, well, it’s Louisiana and of course there should be a swamp on campus!)

Cajun Country.
Thousands of French Canadians ended up on the bayous of Catholic, French-speaking Louisiana in the 18th century. Along with the French language, many of their traditions—Mardi Gras chicken runs, Boudreaux and Thibodeaux jokes, fiddle-and-accordion-driven music—are alive and kicking.

The Kindest People.
That Southern Hospitality thing everyone talks about? It’s real. Not sure if it’s the weather, but the people are beyond warm. We’ve been asked to stay a while, go to a crawfish boil, and a random stranger bought us lunch one day because he was inspired by our pedal-powered journey (or the fact that we’re cycling through the swamp, which we have to admit is pretty cool). The generosity of strangers in this state is truly special—it’s a beautiful thing.

The Atchafalaya Basin.
It’s the nation’s largest river swamp, containing almost one million acres of America’s most significant bottomland hardwoods, swamps, bayous, and backwater lakes. A lot of the land is impassable by foot or car, and we have to cycle over bridges. (Or get a boat or ferry.) The other day we saw a “No Trespassing” sign on a cypress in a swamp off the road. I turned to Cortney and said you couldn’t pay me to go in there. We also had to cross quite a few elevated bridges and even took an underground tunnel (that thankfully we got to walk through rather than bike).

Mosquitoes in the winter?
You betcha. If you’re from up North where it gets cold, you get a break from the bugs. Not here, so don’t forget the deet.

Extreme porch-sitting.
Yes, it’s a real thing here. It doesn’t matter if it’s a small town or a city, there are always folks sitting out front of their homes, enjoying the day. And there’s always a smile, a friendly wave, and a “How y’all doing?”

Crawfish farms.
Riding into Lafayette, we passed miles and miles of crawfish farms. For a quick minute, we thought they might be rice fields, but once we saw the farmers were our there in their boats checking the traps, it was easy to figure out. Never seen anything quite like it.

Some very special motorists.
At this point in our journey, Cortney and I have cycled thousands of miles together and we haven’t had anyone aggressively honk at us. That is until now. It happened a few times this week and we’re curious why, especially since we were following the rules of the road. I think it comes down to folks not being used to seeing people ride bikes. Also, it’s comforting to know that our “always busy” and “in a rush” culture has penetrated deep into the backwoods of the swamp. On their way to pick up a frozen daiquiri, maybe?

This is by no way or means an exhaustive list. Cortney and I aren’t Cajun or Louisiana experts. We’re just riding our bikes to new places and trying to look at our experience objectively, always with an open mind. There’s nothing else quite like Louisiana. No doubt, New Orleans will be a different world too.

If you have anything distinctly Louisiana to add, please share a note in the comments.

-Erik