In April 2003, my employer requested me to fly out to New Iberia in Louisiana, USA, to complete the $3m Thunder Horse Desanding Project. The original project manager decided that he had had enough and wanted to return to the UK. The trip was to be for a period of 4 weeks, the day before I flew out this had become, ‘a minimum of 4 weeks’, and so it transpired. I was granted a 90-day US Visa and I had to return on the 88th day, just before the visa expired. After 2-1/2 weeks back in the UK, I returned to complete the project.

Whilst in New Iberia I discovered that the Tabasco plant was only 6 miles away on Avery Island. The plant itself is not much to look at but the attached Jungle Gardens is something else. This is a wooded area almost surrounded by water where wildlife abounds. The images below are mostly taken within the confines of Jungle Gardens: