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February 2001
Louisiana - Lafayette and Avery Island
David Aaronson2005-09-25 18:28:09
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The first stop on our Mardi Gras trip was Lafayette, Louisiana. Lafayette is the self-proclaimed capitol of 'Acadiana' or Cajun Country. It is the largest city in the region and the center of Cajun culture and we thought it would be a nice warm-up non-commercialized version of Mardi Gras to start with. Lafayette also still has a courir (French for 'to run') in which a group of people run through various neighborhoods collecting ingredients with which to make gumbo.
The evening we stayed in Lafayette was the evening of the Krewe of Bonaparte parade (1). Mardi Gras parades are organized by Krewes which are fairly exclusive groups of people. Each Krewe has its own entrance requirements, traditions and internal culture. From what we learned, most of the more traditional Mardi Gras Krewes are not really that bad, you'll notice not everyone on this float is even masked. New Orleans seems to be the only place where the secrecy and exclusiveness are particularly extreme.
We honestly did not know what to expect in Lafayette and after the parade was over we had no basis for comparison. In retrospect, after New Orleans, it's a truly crucial part of the Mardi Gras experience. Not necessarily Lafayette but some city other than New Orleans. We parked downtown and sat on the curb in front of our car waiting for the parade. It was very laid-back, everyone stayed behind the barricades and it was never more than one person deep along the street. When the floats came, they threw almost exclusively beads more or less randomly. If you could make eye contact with a Krewe member, they generally threw you some beads.
Except for a few beads caught by trees, every strand was snapped up by someone, usually kids running along the sidewalks. We were glad the car was right there because we caught so many we had to divest a few times. This picture is of our loot after the parade (2). One cup and about 150
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United States Gallery
