Road trippin' through the Deep South in the US

A road trip through Louisiana, Alabama and Tennessee reveals the weight of civil rights history and its contradictions in small-town America

- Rishad Saam Mehta

The alligator was approximately 8ft, lying motionless in the dappled shade of a bald cypress whose roots plunged into the green waters of the Atchafalaya Basin.

Captain Mark, our guide from Cajun Customized Excursions, cut the engine of his boat to a murmur and let it drift closer. The gator tracked our approach with the bored menace of a species that has survived 200 million years by practising patience.

“He knows I'm not bringing snacks,” Mark drawled. “These gators, they're wild. Not like those tourist ones that come running when they hear a boat engine.”

This distinction mattered. We'd driven from Dallas specifically to see the Atchafalaya in Louisiana in its natural state. Mark and his wife Peggy love this wilderness, where Spanish moss hangs like wizened beards from ancient trees and herons and spoonbills stalk the shallows with the focus of assassins. The Atchafalaya Basin sprawls across 1.4 million acres, America’s largest river swamp, and follows its own rhythms, unmoved by the Interstate 10 bridge that spans its waters mere miles distant.

From the hush of the swamp, we drifted into the riotous colour of New Orleans. Here jazz spills from doorways, the scent of jambalaya competing with the whiff of beer and daiquiris. The French Quarter is many things, but subtle isn’t one of them. It is loud, vibrant and peppered with plaques and architecture that span two centuries. On our second evening, we drove to Bacchanal, a wine shop turned garden restaurant in the Bywater neighbourhood away from the frenzy of downtown. A three-piece jazz ensemble played standards while we lingered over a cheese plate and a bottle of something French. The music wasn't background; it was conversation. This was New Orleans beyond the tourist zone, where the emphasis is on slowness and on savouring.