438 - Cascada La Cebolla
OK, I lied. Remember when I said I was exhausted after shooting La Poza? Turns out I had one more shoot in me for the day.
Photography’s like a drug. I need every drop of it I can- even if my mental health is at stake. Earlier in the morning at Las Pozas, I’d navigated myself out of the depths of photography hell and came back with an absolute stunner. A task so frivolous, even an award winning therapist would be impressed.
Needless to say, as we strolled back to the van, I was glowing like a turkey. This, my friends, is what I like to call “state.” It’s when you and your camera connect to become one, and nothing else matters. It’s like that feeling when you take that first bite of food after a long day, and all your mind can concentrate on is how damn good it tastes. THAT is state.
And now that I was in it, I wasn’t going to lose it.
I spent some time on Google Maps looking for something close to shoot. We were in the strange mountain town of Xilitla, which, for lack of better words, is essentially a jungle in the mountains. The roads are cracked, houses hang off cliffs like monkeys, and stray dogs popped in and out of the trees like a deranged game of whack-a-mole.
The area had waterfalls, I knew that. It was WAY too humid and we could hear a stream trickling through the trees.
When looking on Google Maps for a new location to shoot, I like to simply zoom in randomly. If there’s an icon that sounds interesting and isn’t a restaurant, I’ll check it out. It’s the best way to find hidden gems.
I also didn’t want to drive anywhere. The way in was a goddamn nightmare. The road could barely fit a Toyota Corolla, let alone a massive Airstream Sprinter van. Some of the alleys even rivaled San Francisco in steepness.
I ended up discovering a couple waterfalls close by, but they were all behind paywalls. Then I found one that looked pretty sick, called Cascada de Cebolla, which roughly translates to “Waterfall of the Onion.” From the pics, it reminded me of Duncan Creek Falls in Oregon because the water appeared to drip down a layered path. Mmmmm.
I zoomed out and realized it was literally 500 feet away from us. What the…
THAT’S what the stream sound was! It was just hidden deep in the trees so we couldn’t find it with our naked eye. Luck of the Irish I’d say. And the place was completely shaded, making it optimal for long exposure waterfalls without a ND filter. Boo-ya.
(My ND filter is scratched to oblivion and stained shitless, so I only use it when in dire situations.)
I loaded up my camera, played with a few angles, and ended up with this shot:
“Green Onions”
Taken on Sony a7rIII + Tamron 17-28mm f/2.8
[ISO 320 ~ 17mm ~ f/10 ~ 0.5s]
(Want a Print? Get one here.)
I’ll take it. Not every waterfall’s gonna be a Cascada de Tamul. A simple, yet elegant scene- and it makes a solid wallpaper.
Since the scene had high levels of greenery, I used a circular mask in Lightroom to desaturate everything a tad except for the main leaves in front. This technique of contrasting via saturation is helpful if your image looks too vibrant everywhere, and you need the eyes to fall on one subject.
Oddly enough, that was my first time ever doing that. I’ll be keeping that in my pistol arsenals.
And with that, I walked off away as my photography buzz died off and the weariness of the day ahead set in. We now had to drive 5 hours out of this town, and it was my turn behind the wheel of the mega bus.
Within 10 minutes I fucked up. I took a turn down a (poorly) marked one-way, and ended up driving into the middle of the downtown area. My heart began to race as locals began pointing at us to turn around, but there was no way in fuck that was going to happen. The road wasn’t wide enough to support even the thought of a U-Turn.
And like clockwork, a man coming the opposite direction drove up. I made eye contact with him, and regretted it immediately. The dude was PISSED. He started yelling and pointing in Spanish, and I gestured at him to back his truck up.
Big mistake.
He went ballistic and picked up his phone to call someone. The thing was, if he backed up literally 20 feet, there was an opening we could probably do a U-Turn in, but he refused to budge. He wanted us to drive backwards out, for about .2 miles down a windy one way road with people and shops spilling into the street like beans.
That’s not going to happen, bud.
By this point a small crowd had gathered, amused by the situation. We were the whitest couple in 200 miles trying to drive a chunk of cheese through their cliffside town. I couldn’t help but smile at the absurdity of the situation. Some local even toted at me to “stop talking shit.” I don’t even think he knew what that meant, because I hadn’t spoken a word yet. It was all nonverbal.
After what felt like the longest standoff of my life, a police officer finally showed up. Like a logical human being, he made the other dude backup so we could turn around. The man was furious, but realizing he had no other choice, finally put it in reverse.
The officer was pretty friendly about the situation. He helped us do a U-Turn and told us directions for the easiest way out of town with our rig.
Jesus Christ. I’ll have to check that off the bucket list. “Drive a oversized van the wrong way down a one way in a rural Mexico mountain town.”
A the end of the day though, that’s precisely why I do this shit. Stories like that.
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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