New Orleans LA to Lafayette LA (the latinos come through)

New Orleans, crazy town, i don't understand how it works but its a bit of a free state. Drinking in the streets, awesome! Legalized gambling, well ok. Showing of boobs- well it depends on the boobs. So understand that in such a place an early morning start didn't happen.

I left my hostel at midday, went for an hour long walk out past a cemetery, and along a highway to a suburb of neat middle-class houses, about one in three uninhabitable after the wind and water came through these parts a little while ago.

But I did find a very nice spot to stand, and it wasn't long before a pair of

Nicaraguans
picked me up and got me somewhat to the edges of New Orleans. I say somewhat because New Orleans is big and I wasn't sure where it actually ended. They were a couple of friendly guys and were very kind about my Spanish. They spoke that reasonably intelligible form of Spanish that most central americans speak.

Then I waited for a long long long time. And I thought I was in trouble again. Again I had been left at a tricky spot, with lots of traffic, cars moving quick and not an especially safe place for them to stop. I walked up and down and tried various spots. An annoying thing that has recently happened is the end of daylight saving. Now its getting dark at 5pm. And I was rather concerned about the possibility of getting stuck in a dodgy outer suburb of New Orleans. It was after 4pm when a couple of

Mexicans
stopped and said they wanted to help me. The passenger was very concerned that I was hitchhiking and thought the police would arrest me at any moment (I didn't tell him that five police cars had drived past during my long wait) and wanted to take me to the airport where I could catch a bus. I wasn't against the idea at this stage, but they weren't going to the airport, and the driver understood that I was trying to hitchhike. We drove along one of the most amazing highways I've ever seen. A swamp as far as the eye could see, the kind of place you could see yourself fishing amongst alligators, and the only man-made thing in sight this enormous concrete strip. At one stage we reached the intersection of two highways which was an incredible concrete construction floating on poles above this swamp. It was almost dark when they dropped me at a gas-station and wished me luck.

I knew I had no choice but to ask around here. I picked out a guy driving a pickup by himself. He looked like a latino but i tried in English first. I still haven't quite worked out the etiquette for this. If you strongly suspect someone of being a spanish-speaker, is it ok to try Spanish first? Would that be offensive if they didn't speak Spanish. Well, when I told in English him I was trying to get a lift to Baton Rouge, he pointed me in the direction of the highway I needed (assuming I had a car). He hadn't understood. Then I tried in Spanish, explaining I was hoping maybe he could give me a lift. He was very reluctant at first, but eventually I talked him into it.

The Honduran
And wasn't I glad I did talk him into it. What a great guy. An illegal immigrant from Honduras who had been living in Lafayette for a couple of years, working in construction. He didn't speak English very well at all. Like so many of these guys who've moved up from South of the border, his job didn't require him to speak English. According to the Lousiana farmers, these latino guys are known for being hard workers, and you just have to find one in the group who can speak English so he can explain things to the rest. He laughed at my joke which I heard the other day, that to my surprise translated well into Spanish. It goes:
Brown + White = Green
We had lots of laughs in the end, and he very kindly took me all the way into downtown Lafayette where I decided I would stay for the night. I had been trying to get to Texas, but when hitchhiking you take what you can get.