455 - Cascada El Chiflón
Today we were stopped by a local town in Mexico that had taken control of part of the highway. It’s just as crazy as it sounds.
Our goal for today’s shoot was to to make it to Cascada El Chiflón, which was a set of waterfalls we’d been dreaming about for weeks. I’d stumbled upon it by randomly searching “cascadas” into Google Maps in the direction we were heading, a strategy that’s proven successful in the past. The waterfall looked gorgeous from every photo I saw- it was supposed to be nearly 400 feet height, and looked like a Mexican version of Multnomah Falls.
But in order to get there, we had to go through the rural area of Chiapas, which had gone through a fairly brutal revolution. The problem was in order to pay for the revolution, they would stop tourists on the road with “the rope” in order to collect money.
Essentially what this means is that you’ll be driving along, then all of a sudden a rope will lift up across the road in an attempt to stop your car. People will then run out and try to get you to buy something from them before they remove the rope to let you pass.
If I’m being honest, when I first heard about it, I thought it sounded ridiculous. But now that it was becoming a reality, I had no idea what to expect. We’d just recently gotten scammed by a 15 year old at Agua Azules, so anything was possible.
Just last week we’d met an older couple at Xpuhil that had been traveling Mexico for over 40 years, and they were the ones who told us about the rope traps. Fortunately, they gave us a strategy. They claimed you just drive through the rope, honking your horn along the way.
Alrighty, then. I guess we’ll be goddamn savages about it.
Like clockwork, the ropes came. The first one was measly. It was lifted in a half hearted attempt by some teenagers, who laughed when we drove right through it. The second one was a similar situation, except with a couple adults. They just looked disappointed when we belted through at 30mph. Neither were a big deal, and I realized I was probably overthinking it.
But then we came upon a town that changed our minds. There was about 10 cars in front of us, all in line to go through a standard military checkpoint.
As we got closer, I started to get the feeling it wasn’t a standard military checkpoint. There was a spike strip in the middle of the road, about 10-15 guys all surrounding car in front of us, and they were taking money from the driver. I suddenly realized these were professional collectors.
Fuck.
We immediately took inventory of what money we had in our pockets, and hid almost all of it in a deck of cards we had lying around in the front seat. Seconds later, we were beckoned forward.
They asked us for 500 pesos to pass ($25 USD), as men surrounded our car. Haley and I looked at each and said “no tengo dinero” at the exact same time, which roughly means “I have no money” in Spanish. We then repeated it four or five times, but they looking at us like we were lying. I’m not going to lie, it was starting to get intimidating.
We gave in and told them all we had was 100 pesos ($5 USD) and a $1 USD bill. They took the money and laughed, but we insisted it was all we had. I even showed him my “empty” wallet.
After about 3 minutes of increased tension, they let us pass.
My heart was pounding because I had no idea if they would try to search the van, but luckily they didn’t intend to resort to violence. At a certain point I think they realize they’re losing money if they spend too much time with you blocking the road. After all there were 5-10 cars behind us, awaiting their fate.
Now that that’s over with, maybe we can get to the actual photography, I thought to myself. But there was still one more roadblock.
We flew around a corner at freighting speed and had to slam on our brakes because someone had placed two massive logs in the middle of the road. Two men suddenly popped out of the bushes and demanded money to pass. Since my confidence was through the roof after passing the last checkpoint, I offered the dude some pretzels instead of money and he couldn’t help but crack a small smile.
We ended up giving him about 5 pesos and said it was all we had. Luckily a semi truck smashed it’s brakes right behind us and started honking, so they succumbed to the pressure and moved the log.
HOME FREE.
We drove another two hours or so without incident, then arrived at the waterfall. It was time for some fucking photography, baby.
I was amped and had a bit of an adrenaline rush from the all the barriers today, so I was ready to go. The hike to the top was about 2 kilometers, uphill. Within about 3 minutes of hiking I came across one of the coolest butterflies I’d ever seen. This thing was straight up TRANSLUCENST:
“Butter-See-Through”
Taken on Sony a7rIII + Zeiss 24-70mm f/4
[ISO 1000 ~ 70mm ~ f/4 ~ 1/100s]
(Want a Print? Get one here.)
That got me even more hyped and we practically ran up the mountain to the waterfall. We arrived right at sunset, and I patiently waited for twilight so I could avoid all the blown out light hitting the waterfall. This was a lesson I learned shooting waterfalls across Oregon a few months back.
Since the waterfall was so massive, mist was raining all over us even from a couple feet away. It felt refreshing after the sweaty hike up. I really need to invest in some shirts that aren’t cotton.
Here was my first shot of the waterfall:
“Insert Waterfall”
Taken on Sony a7rIII + Tamon 17-28mm f/2.8
[ISO 1600 ~ 17mm ~ f/8 ~ 1/400s]
(Want a Print? Get one here.)
Now this was a photo that hit different. Normally I’m all in favor of having the top of the waterfall in frame to show height, but today I felt like changing it up. What if I cut off the top of the waterfall to leave its height up to the viewers imagination? This was entirely possible, but it would mean that the waterfall had to be supporting element of the subject, and not the subject itself. The staircase would also have to be a supporting element.
This meant platform needed to be the subject. So I started midway down the stairs, and left the height of the stairs up the viewer’s imagination. Now that their imagination was running wild from both directions, it felt like a surrealist shot. Almost like a video game…
God, I love that shot. It pulls me in so hard. There’s got to be more reasons why that is, but I can’t put my finger on all them. Sometimes I just have to trust my intuition that a shot looks good for reasons I can’t explain.
And with that, we walked back down the mountain as darkness began to fill the forest.
I’d be a long day. My mind started to go numb, as I realized I was emotionally exhausted from the rope checkpoints and now physically exhausted from the climb. But we reaped in the rewards.
I’d bagged a game changing photo of a waterfall, learned how to bypass a checkpoint with minimal money, and now we had a dope ass camp to sleep at. Seriously. This place was insane. Hammocks, mood lighting, a river, and to top it all off, showers. Since it was in the middle of the woods, I had my first quiet night of sleep in a looooooong time.
Tomorrow we were heading into Guatemala.
I’m on a mission to explore as much as humanely possible.
Want to see my progress? Check out the Adventure Map.
*Please note this page contains affiliate links.
