Grey Angelfish ©Cristian Pi

Snorkeling in the heat and sandflies – Escape to the cayes – Why people move (Map this!)

Mosquitoes, Sandflies and stifling heat were our first, second and last impressions of Utila. We were in the Honduran Bay Islands, famous for its diving. Specifically, Utila is the bargain hunters windfall where you can find the cheapest and best diving schools in the world. So we were told.

Jewel Caye

After the magical Caye Caulker in Belize, Utila was a disappointment. As soon as we stepped off the boat we were deluged with diving school offers. The island streets were overflowing with traffic and fifteen minutes in the sweltering heat convinced us to get a hotel with air conditioning. Shortly thereafter we escaped to Jewel Caye, which was supposedly sandfly free.

Hotel Kayla, Jewel Caye

Other than the substandard lodging on the caye (the only hotel was run by a diving school), Jewel Caye was very pleasant. Diving of course, is the name of the game here, leaving snorkelers feeling a bit left out. Nevertheless it was enjoyable to take advantage of the great snorkeling just off the pier and relax in the cooling breezes that sprang up in the afternoon swapping stories of fish sightings.

Coral in Utila ©Cristian Pi

Steve the divemaster absolutely had to have his fishburger the day we were supposed to leave the caye, thus causing us to miss our ferry to the mainland of La Ceiba. This is how we ended up staying at the Jade Seahorse in Utila. Made by a Californian artist, this weird fantasy land made for a good night’s stay. It also made us debate the reasons that people leave the US.

Jade Seahorse	Treetanic bar, Jade Seahorse, Utila

I would have liked to live in New York city, but I can’t afford it. I can afford Guatemala.
- Truck driver from the US, living in Guatemala.

I do not like the US. Too many rules.
- Proprietor of Popi’s, Nebaj, Guatemala

I always knew I could do stuff that others couldn’t.
- Proprietor of Pizza Copán, Copán Ruinas, Honduras

I have no family in the US. Jose is my family now.
- Lindy Ferguson, living in Merida, Mexico.

Affordability, flexibility, adventure, family – whatever the reasons, I was surprised to find the number of people leaving the most sought after country in the world to live in third world countries.

At Copan

A major phase comes to an end – Santo Domingo vs. Maya Ruins

For the past few months we have been exploring the ruined cities of the Maya. Quirigua and Copan, which grew in splendid isolation, were the last of the major sites that we visited. Hopefully our obsession with this corner of archaelogy did not bore you all too much

As a farewell I present this photo essay contrasting the beautifully maintained, but slightly Disneyesque ruins of the Santo Domingo church in Antigua, with the ultimate Maya sites we visited.

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Shreesh and the blue morpho

The Enchanted Wings – Patience – the nature of the macro lens. (Map this!)

“It takes a lot of patience to do macro photography”. Shreesh remarked, walking back from “The Enchanted Wings”, a butterfly garden in Copán Ruinas, Honduras. We had just spent three hours fiddling with our camera, the tripod with its Acratech ball head, the level, the angled viewfinder and the 180mm macro lens in an effort to photograph the butterflies.

Siproeta Stelenes	Close-up	Wings

I couldn’t agree with this notion. I felt that patience is required when doing something that one doesn’t like, e.g. dealing with bawling children or negotiating ugly politics at work.

Patience is the ability to endure waiting, delay, or provocation without becoming annoyed or upset, or to persevere calmly when faced with difficulties. – Wikipedia.

Papilio Cresphonles Larva disguises itself as bird poo.

But we love working with our specialty lenses; its not a “delay” or a “provocation”. When you enjoy doing something that could take a long time and may or may not produce great results, does that qualify as requiring patience? I felt that if it weren’t technically complicated, macro photography would lose something. I only discovered that I liked driving when we bought a car with a stick shift. As in driving with a stick shift, the macro lens demands greater involvement from the user, hence giving better control.

Unidentified butterfly

I had initially been against Shreesh’s idea of buying not one but two difficult to use lenses – the Sigma 180mm macro and the Lensbaby 3G (for special effects). I was concerned that composing a technically difficult photo could be frustrating when pressed for time, e.g., on a hike. Then I had an epiphany. Why not remove those parameters that make it so? Unencumbered by time and by conflicting goals we could take all the time we wanted.

Caligo Eurilochus (Larva)	Caligo Eurilochus	Close-up

We tested this out by going to the Japanese tea garden in San Francisco just to experiment with the lenses. It was a revelation. The very act of composing the photograph was delightful. Fiddling with the myriad adjustments in macro photography- ranging from the tactile adjustments of the various knobs on the ball head to the electronic adjustments on the camera – were almost necessary dues that had to be paid in return for the sudden revelation of hidden worlds that opened up before us. Even a simple flower was transformed into an object of wonder as the vague blur crystallized into previously invisible textures and features. We had discovered a new hobby.

For more pictures taken with the macro lens, click here.