Saturday morning fever: Getting drunk on bloody marys and dancing in Louisiana at 8.30am

If you thought New Orleans was Louisiana’s only party town, think again. Anthea Gerrie joins the early-morning queues for drinks and dancing in Cajun Country

The weekend starts early in Cajun Country, with dancing from 8am at the Cafe des Amis (photography by Louisiana Office of Tourism unless stated)

It’s only 8.30am, but the joint is jumping. My first bloody mary is sparking a fire in my throat and the crawfish pie is cooling fast as I two-step round the floor with a French-speaking charmer sporting a well worn pair of boots and a fine cowboy hat.

“Bienvenue au fais do do, chère,” he shouts, twirling me under his arm as the zydeco band plays on, a bluesy ensemble of accordion, drums, Cajun fiddle and frottoir (a washboard by a much more exotic name).

We’re in Breaux Bridge, gateway to Acadiana, the French-speaking Louisiana hinterland punctuated by murky bayous and stunted tree stumps. It’s a mysterious, swampy land, a world away from New Orleans – and two and a half hours in real time, obliging us to leave the city before dawn to make it by opening time at the Cafe des Amis.

Floor show: dancing up a storm at Cafe des Amis (Louisiana Office of Tourism) (Louisiana Bureau of Tourism)

Out here in Cajun Country, the weekend starts with a “zydeco breakfast”, where customers eat and dance to a live band playing zydeco – the bluesy, Creole-Cajun music that evolved in the area. Breaux Bridge is the first stop in a mad dash between the three best gigs of the week. The other two are in otherwise unremarkable Eunice and the tiny, tumbleweed hamlet of Mamou. Everything happens between 8am and 2pm, here, so it’s vital to get started early.

Not least because there might be a queue. The morning dance session attracts hundreds every week, and not just at the Café des Amis. Buck and Johnny’s and Joie de Vivre, rival cafes down the road, serve up eggs, cocktails and live bands at their own zydeco breakfasts, too.

Fuelled by the bloody mary, I could happily dance till the band packs up at noon. But by 10am, just as I’m getting the hang of the two-step (a courtly dance French settlers brought south with them from Canada when they fled religious persecution), friends are dragging me away.

In session: professionals and amateurs at the Savoy Music Centre (Louisiana Office of Tourism) (Louisiana Touism Bureau)

It takes nearly an hour to reach Eunice. We pelt down a highway littered with billboards advertising both boudin (local sausage that’s often sold at service stations here) and KAJN Jesus, a Christian radio station. Eunice is home to the Cajun Music Hall of Fame but there’s no time for that this morning – we’re here for the weekly jam session at the Savoy Music Centre, a shop owned by Marc and Ann Savoy. It’s a precious chance to hear locals fiddling, strumming guitars and pumping Savoy-made accordions in the company of some fine professional musicians (Ann and her sons have played on movie soundtracks).

When Marc – patriarch of the Savoy Family Cajun Band – opened the store half a century ago, it was amateurs like himself he had in mind.

“I set out to recreate the spirit I enjoyed as a child: that of an old-time house dance,” he says, explaining that Saturday was the day when Cajun farmers got “all gussied up”. In the early days, customers would call in at the shop to socialise over coffee, take an instrument off the counter and play a few tunes. “To list all the names of early jammers at the Savoy would read like a who’s who of Cajun music in Louisiana,” he says.

Today, the jammers are a mix of professionals and amateurs (everything from lawyers to labourers in real life). Listening to them is as sublime an introduction to the music of Acadiana as you can get. This is purer, more lyrical, more bluegrassy than zydeco – transporting, even. Luckily, my friends allow me to stay until the very last number, since the action at our last stop continues till 2pm.

Musical treat: patrons make the most of the six hours a week that Fred’s Lounge is open (Flickr/Megg)

Mamou is a sleepy place, with no sign of life on a Saturday morning other than the odd stray dog sprawled in the white afternoon heat. It seems impossible to imagine it could be home to the most jumping of joints. But all those missing locals appear to have crammed into Fred’s Lounge, a bar open for just six hours a week for a party that’s even broadcast on local radio. Live bands blast out country tunes under disco lighting at a time when, normally, you’d be having your first coffee.

It’s packed by lunchtime – though “lunch” here means beer, bands and more bloody marys. It feels every bit as edgy as any pub at closing time on a Friday night – an atmosphere at odds with the blindingly bright daylight beyond the saloon doors.

Come 2pm, we’re in urgent need of a siesta. Lightweights would return to the Big Easy now, but we’re aiming to hold out until 6.30pm when the action starts up again. Lafayette is the capital of Acadiana and the nearest Cajun Country gets to an urban hub. It’s also home to some legendary dance halls, where we want to round off our Saturday Cajun music experience.

Come in for a bite: deep-fried alligator is on the menu at Randol’s (Flickr/John Krupsky)

Randol’s is part dance hall, part restaurant, with food like deep-fried alligator, boudin balls and blackened catfish étoufée on the menu. It’s a down-home country experience – as different as you can get from the sophistication of New Orleans (Bourbon Street aside) – but thanks to the old-fashioned courtliness of the company and the patois they use to greet each other on the dance floor, it’s not one iota less exotic.

Travel essentials

Getting there

British Airways flies from London Heathrow to New Orleans from £694.

Staying there

It's easiest to stay in New Orleans. Soniat House has doubles from $245 (£196), B&B