424 - Mirador De Cristal
Probably one of my wildest adventures in a LONG time- featuring a near death experience. It was was our first shoot in mainland Mexico- at Mirador Del Cristal.
Near death experience you say? What? This is a BIG blog post, but I promise, it's worth the read. Let's start from the beginning- way back in La Paz, Baha California. Our time had finished in what I like to call "Mexico Lite," and it was time for the real challenge- mainland. The only problem was we had to GET there. It was a 16 hour overnight ferry ride across the Sea of Cortez.
We had two options. A cheap ferry that was essentially a cargo ship we could sleep in our van on, or a "nice" ferry that would give us our own cabins to sleep in, while the van was stored below deck. Naturally, we opted for the cheaper ferry, not exactly knowing what we were getting ourselves into.
Not a single person at the port spoke English. We had to get our van weighed, go through customs, buy a ticket, get searched, and figure out how to board a cargo ship with high school level Spanish skills. It took longer than I care to admit, but a couple frustrating hours later, we got the job done.
Upon boarding, they directed our van to the back of the boat, under a hanger. From there, semi trucks of all sizes were packed in like sardines around us, and grisly truckers began to roam the rusty decks. The moment we stepped aboard, I knew this was going to be an experience.
We were completely out of place. There were no families or people our age around. The crowd consisted of tough Mexican truckers and sailors, who were looking at us like like the gringos we were. Haley mentioned she wouldn't have felt comfortable if she was alone. Fuck, I didn't even feel comfortable there as a couple. But the boat took off, and we were left with no choice.
Eventually the the dinner bell rang, and we nervously made our way to the mess hall. I didn't realize the "bad food on a boat" stereotype was real until I took my first bite.
Besides the horchata, I almost couldn't finish it- but the cook was eyeing us like hawks, so I ate every bite. We ate in silence amongst twenty or so strangers, all silently watching the Bourne Identity on a tv the size of a mini fridge.
We retreated to our van after dinner, and planned to stay there the rest of the night watching binge watching movies.
And... it almost worked out this way. At about 11pm, after just finishing Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind starring Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet, I felt dizzy. The boat was rocking like nuts, and I've admittedly never been this far into the ocean before.
I figured I was seasick, and I started to feel even more nauseous and weird as I laid back down.
The weird thing was, Haley felt it too, and she NEVER gets seasick. She basically grew up on boats. We chalked it up to the uneasy atmosphere, and clicked off the light to go to bed. About 30 seconds later, our carbon monoxide detector started blaring.
Confused, but aware of the brevity of the situation, I threw myself out of bed, and ran to open the side door. A massive whiff of fumes drifted in. We needed to get out of here. ASAP.
My heart started pounding as we inched our way through the maze of semis to fresh air. We eventually found a staircase to the top deck. The wind felt like the best air I've ever breathed.
We sat down and took in the gravity of the situation. If that alarm hadn't gone off, you probably wouldn't be reading this right now. Looking around, we realized all the truckers had their generators running to cool the inside of the cabins overnight, and since our van was in the very back of the boat under the hanger, we were basically just sitting in a garage full of running vehicles.
The problem was there was no way we were going to get 30 truckers to turn off their systems overnight, so now we had nowhere to sleep.
Fuck.
I had some flashbacks to my overnighters of college. But before I could complete that thought, my eyes began to adjust outside and I saw people sleeping on the deck. Some guys had sleeping bags on cardboard, and one dude even had a portable tent he was in. Must be the other unlucky truckers that got placed in the hanger as well- they knew better than to stay in their cabin.
Luckily we both had sleeping bags in the van, so we took some deep breaths and ran back to fetch em'. We both knew full well we'd be surrounded by strangers in the morning. This was going to be a loooong night.
And that it was. It was so windy my sleeping bag kept blowing off, but so hot that I had to keep it unzipped. I woke up sweating several times, only to look up at the stars rocking back and forth above us like some kind of fucked up lullaby. I felt completely exposed to anything and everything this ship and it's passengers had to offer.
Eventually, morning came around. I barely slept at all. We put our bags away as the sun slowly drifted into view. We just sat there for a few hours staring into the ocean, dazed.
After some time, a few truckers came over and struck up small talk with us. They were extremely friendly, and didn't speak any English. We both pushed our boundaries of language to communicate, and somehow ended up making it work. They told us about their families, their backgrounds, and their livelihoods. We shared our story with them, and they gave us recommendations about Mexico and we had a bunch of laughs. It completely changed my view of the "intimidating foreign truckers" we were surrounded by. These were genuinely nice people, who were curious about us.
We ended up talking to some more people, and we swapped contact info to meet up in Guadalajara later in the week. Cool! I'd made my first international friends.
From then on, the rest of the ride felt nice, and I felt like I'd just had an experience I'll probably remember forever. THIS... I realized, is why you travel.
OK. You're probably wondering where the photography comes in. Well, let's skip ahead. You needed that context to understand the photos ahead.
We docked the boat, drove off, and parked on a random street corner to get our bearings. Life was good- I had made some friends, survived the trip across the sea, and we were all ready to begin our next exciting chapter in Mexico.
And that's when the food poisoning kicked in.
I knew how bad it hit me the first time in Baha Rocks, and I got a puff of anxiety. Negativity began to cloud my head, and I was too tired from the night before to control it. It must have been from the horrible food on the boat.
Well, I spent most the day just laying in the van. It got close to 100 degrees F out, so it was pure misery as I couldn't sleep and my stomach was killing me.
And I NEEDED to shoot today. I missed yesterday's shoot because the boat experience was initially jarring, and I was a day behind. Fuck it, I thought. I'm skipping anyway.
And then I had a change of heart. NO. We're doing our planned shoot today. It involved a 1.5 mile hike up to the tallest point in Mazatlán, and to be honest it sounded like absolute hell. I wasn't even sure if I would make it.
But I went anyway. Because I needed to get better at photography. Every day counts. Every single adventure is one step closer to photography perfection. I told myself I would make up the missed boat shoot with an extra adventure this upcoming weekend, and be back on track to my 5 adventures a week goal.
A couple hours later, I made it to the top. Barely. I'll spare you the details of the hike- it wasn't pretty. But once I started shooting, all my pain melted away. Here's the two bangers I got:
“Pinocchio Verde”
Taken on Sony a7rIII + Tamron 17-28mm f/2.8
[ISO 320 ~ 17mm ~ f/13 ~ 1/80s]
(Want a Print? Get one here.)
“Pinocchio Verde”
Taken on Sony a7rIII + Tamron 17-28mm f/2.8
[ISO 320 ~ 17mm ~ f/13 ~ 1/200s]
(Want a Print? Get one here.)
The first one was my favorite scene up there, just pure wavy plants, an island centered, a perfectly timed bird, and pink flowers. I couldn't of asked for more. Kind of looked looks like a face in the hedge...
The second shot was this glass overlook deck that was the "main attraction." Funny how no one cared about the lighthouse, just the fancy glass bridge.
It was pretty much packed the entire time, but I found a moment where one solitary person was at the end. I decided to keep it a silhouette shot because there was massive amount of junk where the dark in that shot is, so I simplified it down and blacked out everything I didn't like. Silhouette light/dark style works particular well to get rid of "busy" scenes and make them minimalist.
But that's not the big lesson here today. The lesson is that lots of days are going to be shitty, especially when traveling to foreign lands. There's just things you simply can't account for. And if you took a day off every single time something bad happened, you'd never experience the land. So push through it, and shoot anyway.
Whew! What a post. Alright I'm going to sleep now. Bye!
I’m on a mission to explore as much as humanely possible.
Want to see my progress? Check out the Adventure Map.
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