One of my first stops in New Orleans was Marie Laveau's Voodoo shop. The smell of incense wafted through the open doors and beckoned me in. All sorts of "trinkets" covered the little shop and various Voodoo dolls hung from the ceiling. I started inspecting the dolls and each one represented a different country of origin and had a specific purpose. Some were actually cute and some were downright frightening. A worker noticed me gawking and informed me that the doll that draws you in the most is the one you need. Well, the cute Voodoo doll "For Success" drew me in and I purchased it. Another interesting "trinket" I found was a bag of brick dust to spread across the threshold to ward off evil. 
From there, I ventured towards the nearest cemetery Saint Louis Cemetery Number One, which some say is where the famed Voodoo Queen of New Orleans Marie Laveau is "buried" in a above-ground tomb. All of the dead are "buried" above-ground because New Orleans' elevation is so low that it floods very easily and the citizens don't want to have unexpected (and decomposing) visitors knocking on their doors. Anyways...
The cemetery had an eerie beauty to it that I shall try to convey in the pictures below. When you come to the photos of the tomb (reportedly Marie Laveau's) that has the Triple X's on them, the explanation behind it is that it is the anonymous signatures of people who are petitioning for the spirit of Laveau to do them some otherworldly favors. Spooky right?
As night fell, I thought it'd be fun to go on the Haunted History walking tour of the French Quarter. It's mostly just a lot of talking about history and reports of ghosts to go along with the history. Some of it was interesting, like how people actually had their keyholes put in upside down to confuse ghosts and to keep them out of their house. There was one stop on the trip that really captivated my attention. It was the old home of Madame Marie Delphine LaLaurie, a sadistic murderess who tortured her slaves for fun.
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| The infamous kitchen is now a garage. |
It is said that LaLaurie would host lavish parties at her home, but several times throughout each party she would disappear... and then re-appear in a whole new wardrobe. Sure, she could be pulling a Lady GaGa, but the truth slipped a little when LaLaurie was suspected of horsewhipping a child and throwing her out the window to her death. The truth finally did come out when the kitchen in her home caught on fire. Firefighters rushed to put the fire out and found a slave chained in the kitchen. It was the slave who started to fire in a desperate attempt to get free. The firefighters also found several skeletal remains under the kitchen floor. However, it wasn't until they went upstairs and forced their way into a locked room, when they really knew what they were dealing with. Blood and mutilated bodies littered the locked room. A slave girl was locked away in a box, her broken limbs contorted so she could fit. The other acts committed to the other bodies are too grotesque to describe. And that's why LaLaurie had to change her dress so many times at a party... her unquenchable bloodlust. By the way, LaLaurie fled and was never caught.
I saw no ghosts on the Haunted History tour, but I might have captured one on my camera at the Hotel Monteleone. I was admiring the hotel's famous Carousal Bar (a place author Truman Capote haunted during the living) and snapped a quick photo over the crowd fighting to put their bellies up on the bar. I didn't notice until I got home that the businessman's face right in front of me was well... see-through. Someone said "the ghost-face" is just an overexposure, which means that the image is white-looking or washed-out. But if you look very, very closely you can clearly see straight through the man's head and make out what is behind his head. I admit that there is a glass door next to him and mirrors encircle the top of the carousal, so maybe that has something to do with it. I'm not swearing this is a ghost, but hey... it's fun to think about.
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