Travel Log: New Orleans - Friday, December 1, 2017

After a great breakfast at our hotel, we started our day with a New Orleans Walking Tour by Free Tours by Foot. We had the luck of the draw of getting a tour guide who is a High Priest in Louisiana Voodoo and Haitian Voodoo. His name was Robi (pronounced "row be") and he was excellent. He made us part of his slave family and walked us through the myths, realities, and rituals of voodoo.

The biggest take away from the tour was that Hollywood has really glamorized Voodoo into something that it isn't at all. It is actually a monotheistic religion (believes in one god). They have certain human figures (ancestors) that after they passed, their god elevated to a status above man, but below god.

They don't sacrifice babies, dance naked in the moonlight, dance with snakes, or any other crazy thing you may have seen in movies and on TV about Voodoo. There are actually a lot of parallels with catholicism. Here are some photos and video clips from our tour:

Outside Louis Armstrong Park where our tour began

Congo Square - The location where slaves often danced on Sundays, their day off

Statute at Congo Square

The symbol drawn during a ritual - this symbol is unique to the family drawing it and the symbols mean specific things about the family's ancestors. This drawing only goes back 3 or 4 generations where typically they go back 10 generations.

There is a lot of conflicting, unknown, misinformation out there about Marie Laveau. She was a "catholic" as all slaves were back then when Voodoo was illegal. She gained her freedom and was a hairdresser for many of the wives of politicians. Through her job as a hairdresser, she learned so much gossip which she later used to "encourage" politicians to make Voodoo legal.

The house that now stands where Marie Laveau used to live - her house was "accidentally" burnt down after her death.

After our tour we stopped at Conjure New Orleans, one of only a few stores that sell truly authentic voodoo stores. The other two stores our guide recommended were Voodoo Authentica and Carmel and Sons Botanica.

We then caught a short Christmas parade.

From there we went in search of lunch only to find out the southern half of the French Quarter was experiencing a power outage. After walking a long way, we finally found a Jimmy John's for something quick.

After lunch we headed to Jackson Square where we had a few minutes to enjoy the square before our next tour so we stopped and listened to this street performer who was really entertaining. I don't recall what the name of the instrument was that he was playing.

Here are some photos of Jackson Square:

St. Louis Cathedral

Our next tour was the French Quarter Walking Tour by Free Tours By Foot. Our tour guide Kayla was very knowledgeable. She gave us a history of how they first where ruled by the French who sent all the criminals, prostitutes, non-productive citizens to initially settle the colony. Then eventually the Spanish took over for a short period although the citizens refused to speak Spanish and stuck to their creole roots. The French took over once more but only for a very short time before the US gained control via the Louisiana Purchase (giving Napoleon $15 million to acquire the Louisiana Purchase - the area west of the Mississippi).

Row houses along Jackson Square

The symbol on a house where the owners regularly donated to the fire department - these houses the firefighters attended to first in the event of a fire.

The left building has a balcony (no posts to the ground). The right house has gallery (supports to the ground allow for a larger "balcony").

This is one of the only houses in the old style. The owners were able to build very quickly after the fire in the late 1700s, before regulations were put in place by the Spanish requiring the use of bricks in building. We tour this house the next day.

The spikes are "Romeo spikes" to discourage young men from visiting the owner's daughters bedroom. They say they would go up as Romeo and come down as Juliet.

New regulations after the fire in the late 1700s, required houses to be built up closer to the road so fire trucks could easily reach them. This meant the front gardens became patios inside. The courtyards/patios are really beautiful!