Green trees, some dripping with gray Spanish moss, bow over the canal and sometimes brush the sides of our flat-bottomed boat. Suddenly, out of the brown water, the curiously dog-like head of an alligator appears, its ridiculously truncated legs clawing the water as its amber eyes glare up at us. “The good thing is, if an alligator isn't hungry, it won't attack you,” our guide, Cap'n Joey of Lafitte Tours ( www.jeanlafitteswamptour.com ) tells us. “So you know if it attacks you, you'll die right away. A crocodile will rip you apart and bury you for later.”

Once an endangered species, alligators now fill the swamp land that is just a short drive from the great tourist destination that is New Orleans . If you find yourself needing a break from the decadence on Bourbon Street , the great outdoors offers some fascinating alternatives.

Louisiana is home to 40% of U.S. coastal wetlands, nature's sponge for floods and an incubator for a wide variety of plants, birds, reptiles and amphibians. The calm environment allows young to grow up in water too shallow for many predators. Swamp tours proliferate, and despite the campy alligators and pseudo-pirates that decorate their literature and gift shops, nature is very much the subject of the excursion.

Passengers seated on wooden seats ringing the deck learn that alligators grow one foot a year for the first six years of life; after that it is a matter of inches until they reach a maximum of 18 feet. This fast growth is essential in the bird-eat-alligator world of the swamp, where a majestic great blue heron can dine on a 15”-long baby ‘gator. And that elegant beak is used to spear fish so they can be flown to land and then swallowed whole, Cap'n Joey tells us.

The boat glides in a leisurely fashion down the arrow-straight waterway, which was cut by oil companies searching for black gold. Sunny, blue skies arch overhead, but the boat is cool and breezy. Mullet leap in silver arches out of the water. A hut sits on stilts, half on shore and half over water; Cap'n Joey reveals his grandparents were swamp dwellers in just such a dwelling in the early part of the century, harvesting alligators, fish and seafood, and roofing their homes with the leaves of the dwarf palmetta tree.

We pass a turtle sunning on a log. “There are two kinds of snapping turtles,” our guide says, “the alligator snapper that can weigh up to 250 pounds and stay submerged most of the time, and the common snapper, which can weigh up to 30 pounds.” It is, of course, the latter we observe slide into the water with a plop; this is not the stuff of which turtle soup is made.

Indeed, Cap'n Joey produces a snapping turtle for us to observe closer up, although he advises a healthy distance. “Always hold a snapping turtle by the tail,” he suggests, carefully demonstrating the procedure (although I wasn't planning on trying it in the foreseeable future). The powerful jaws,                                                   once snapped around an unwary   finger, will unlock only with the turtle's death.

We turn into a bayou, the natural waterway where the ebb and flow of the distant tide nurtures the abundant life. This mix is threatened, however, by salt water seeping down the man-made canals and killing the vegetation on which the food chain depends. The environment is threatened in other ways: 80% of coastal erosion in the U.S. occurs in Louisiana 's 3 million acres of wetlands, which lose 30 to 40 square miles a year.

The complexity of the relationship between man and nature, on the fringes of this city known for its carnal pleasures, is also apparent on a river cruise around the New Orleans harbor, just a few minutes' walk from the hotel district.

( www.atneworleans.com/body/rivercruises.htm ). As the sun sparkles down, we glimpse the French Quarter dominated by St. Louis Cathedral, and the residential section of Algiers on the opposite bank of the mighty Mississippi , which here is spanned by the graceful bridge called the Crescent City Connection. But the sights also include ships from Asia and South America unloading steel; U.S. Army facilities; and the infamous levy, which controls the river only until the next tornado hits, environmentalists warn.

A more peaceful coexistence is apparent at City Park (www.neworleanscitypark.com), a 30-minute trolley ride away from the hotel district and featuring an astounding collection of fantastically shaped live oaks. They tower over the entrance and dominate sections of the spacious, lagoon-dotted park, sometimes stooping like giants frozen in a crawling position, and offering wonderful

hiding places and climbing possibilities for children.

Among other things, the park also offers tennis, a playground, a restaurant and an art museum – the perfect place to spend the day with children. And the trolley ride is an adventure in itself, offering an old-fashioned (read: no air conditioning) way to explore the surrounding area.

Back on the swamp tour, Cap'n Joey produces a baby alligator for the brave to hold. We are carefully instructed on how to keep our hands away from jaws and how to control the powerful tail of this yard-long critter. He takes our handling placidly, his craggy mouth seeming to smile as we gingerly pass him, one to the other. Happy Traveling!

photos: capn_joey.jpg, , gator_kid.jpg, live_oak.jpg, swamp_tour.jpg