Kiss of death?

GATOR PATROL | LOUISIANA

WORDS BY JONAS LARSSON | PHOTO BY ANDERS BERGERSEN

There’s something about alligators and crocodiles. Ever since I was a small child, they have fascinated and terrified me. If you’re in New Orleans and have a day to spare, going on an alligator tour in the Bayou - the marshy wetlands outside the city - is a fun and interesting way to spend it.

Airboat Adventure’s own bus picks us up outside our Frenchmen Street hotel, to leave the safety of NOLA far behind. We reach the swamps within an hour, and it really looks like in the movies. Houses on stilts in the water and an immediate alligator sighting. The size of a German Shepherd, it disappears quick as a paycheck the second it spots us. We are given hearing protection and the swamp boat takes off, an enormous airplane propeller behind us and the captain on what looks like a beach guard tower. Soon, we slow into a lagoon, and when we stop, they approach: three alligators, swimming toward the boat. Our captain brings out a bag of marshmallows. The largest alligator, a female nearly six feet long, obliges and opens her mouth wide. The captain confidently puts a marshmallow in her mouth, then scratches her throat and kisses her right on the mouth. They seem wise and kind. The alligators prefer to eat large rodents, which they kill and bury, letting them ripen for a few days before it is dinnertime. On our way home, the sun sets over the Bayou and I think that I may no longer be as afraid, but there are many other animals I would much rather kiss on the mouth.