Tampa proved to be a nice place. The river walk was pleasant, as city river walks go, and we saw Dolphins and a small shark in the river 🐟. Ybor city, which is a forerunner to Little Havana in Miami, is high on the list of what you are supposed to go and see in Tampa, but actually it isn’t worth it. There is history there but despite claims it has been “restored” to a vibrant community it hasn’t. It remains run down, in our opinion. We did decide to go to the zoo as it scores highly for it’s conservation.

The zoo is actually more of a cross between a zoo as we would understand it, a theme park and a kiddies playground! However, if you ignore the unnecessary bits, the animal stuff is in fact very good and the welfare talks are informative and interesting. We finally got to see some Manatees close up 🙂. They are very hard to find/see in the wild, but the ones there are wild. They have been injured and are being looked after before release 👍. Interesting fact of the day, Manatees use their flippers link hands and have finger nails! Also, for the first time, we got something because of our British accents 😄. We got into the reserved queue line for one of the tours in the zoo….without even asking.

We left Tampa and stayed overnight in Tallahassee – still in Florida, will it ever end? We weren’t expecting much and didn’t explore, it was just a stop over, but actually it is quite a nice place so it seems. We left there heading for New Orleans, via a range of Americana (see pictures, we are going to have to setup a dedicated page!). The weather then decided to play it’s part. Much like in Miami, biblical rain. Add in to the mix road works and heavy traffic, and it was a tricky journey. It took us something like 8 hours. It’s difficult to be sure as we crossed into another time zone 🕰. On the plus side, we added 3 more States to our list. We have now been in 17 and counting.

New Orleans is vibrant to say the least. We are in the French Quarter (the original city) so we are right in the thick of it. There is music everywhere. It’s almost all free as well, very few ticketed places. Bourbon street, which is where “it all happens” is perhaps one of the less interesting parts. Yes it is busy, yes there is a lot of music, yes there are plenty of bars, but imagine Magaluf Jazz style. There are better areas/streets. Today we did a self guided walking tour, a guided tour of a cemetery – more interesting than you’d think due to the Voodoo culture and the fact you can’t bury people underground due to the fact that it is basically a swamp – and a paddle boat ride on the Mississippi. Tomorrow we’ll go further afield and check out the Levees that breached in 2005.