458 - Mirador de Juan Dieguez Olaverri
It was Haley’s birthday and everything we planned went wrong.
At a certain point, there’s only so much research you can do. In my past posts I’ve stressed the importance of knowing what you’re walking into, especially south of the border. But today was the exception.
We rolled up to a rural mountain town, deep in the Guatemalan jungle. The roads were muddy, the trees misty, and the dogs wet. Laguna Brava was our destination, and the place was supposedly a heaven on earth. Cenotes, lagoons, and waterfalls were just a few of the attractions of the area, and we were sufficiently amped.
As we drove into the town on the outskirts, locals walking by gave us the usual wide eye. We waved. 80% of the time, it makes people smile. Especially kids. Kids love that shit.
Driving through this town was my first real glimpse into Guatemalan attire. Dresses, skirts, and scarfs were made up of some of the most insane color patterns, and it looked straight out of a psychedelic movie. Except this was real life.
The tourism board was at the center of the town, which was where you paid your fee to head into the lagoon. Our plan was to drive the van in, explore, and possibly hire a guide to boat us around to some nearby cenotes if the price was right.
But as it turns out, the price wasn’t right. The dude running the place wanted $200 USD to drive us down to the lagoon and give us a boat tour, telling us our van wouldn’t make it. That’s fine, but for context, $200 USD is insanely expensive for a a couple hour tour in rural Guatemala, and our budget had been dwindling much faster than expected. Our uninsured van would also be sitting like a sore thumb in the middle of town all day, unguarded. We had no idea what the people in this town were like. To top it all off, the guy was a dick about it, and that didn’t help.
We talked it over, and Haley wasn’t having it. It was her birthday and her rules, so we left. Just like that. With nothing planned for the rest of the day.
We were in the middle of nowhere and the next big town was Huehuetenango, which was about four hours away. It wasn’t shaping up to be the best birthday in the world like we planned, and Haley was bummed out about it.
With nowhere to go, we started aimlessly heading in that direction. There had to be SOMETHING to do in Huehuetentango. It wasn’t a traditionally “tourist” town, so we’d have to improvise a bit.
Once we hit some service, I Googled away and came across a place called Mirador de Juan Dieguez Olaverri, which seemed to be an overlook of sorts. If you’re ever in a foreign town and have no idea what to shoot, look for the overlook. Almost every town has one, and it’s a nice back up shoot.
Since we had nothing else planned, we said fuck it and headed straight there. The last hour of the drive is where it got interesting. The hill to get up the overlook was an absolute behemoth. And it was full of antsy truckers, aggressive tuk-tuks, speedy motorcycles, and everything in between. Almost every turn was blind, guard rails were few and far between, potholes were massive, and people were passing left and right to get ahead. The whole thing felt like some fucked up race to the top.
I’m still not sure how we made it up alive. A lot of concentration and swearing. But once we pulled into the overlook, we were greeted by an elderly Guatemalan lady handing us bright flowers. She didn’t say anything- just smiled and put her hand out. It felt like some kind of good Oman.
Since we had Taco Bell for lunch (we can’t eat world-class street food for EVERY meal) we decided to lay down and nap the afternoon away until sunset. It was pretty nice, if I’m being honest. Now that we’d made it here, the day had taken a turn for the better, and we had a wonderful sunset ahead of us.
We woke up about two hours later and looked outside. I regretted it. A storm had rolled it, and it was pouring rain. But not just “hot jungle rain.” We’re talking freezing cold, wind crazed rain with a vengeance.
The warmth of the van tempted us to stay, as we lay under the blankets and realized the reality of the situation. We’d just driven four hours to be here for sunset on her birthday, survived the trails of the hill, and missed our morning adventure. We’re fucking going out there, sun or not.
I’d never thought I’d NEED my gloves, shell jacket, and fleece in Central America, but there we were. For some reason I decided to go in sandals and shorts below the waist, which was an absolutely horrible decision.
The first thing I noticed when we stepped out was this massive abandoned house on the country side. It was easily the highlight of the overlook. We ran up the soggy wet hill, and I snagged this shot:
“Rural Hopscotch”
Taken on Sony a7rIII + Zeiss 24-70mm f/4
[ISO 160 ~ 24mm ~ f/7.1 ~ 1/500s]
(Want a Print? Get one here.)
For that photo, I ended up having to exposure blend the sky in, because the contrast was insane in the rain. The house was underexposed, and sky in that small patch was bright as day. I didn’t notice this until I went to edit and saw the blown out patch. But I learned this lesson a long time ago. Whenever I take a photo that features a sky, I always take a second photo of it severely underexposed (on a tripod), in case of instances like this. Today it paid off.
Even though it was rainy as shit, the clouds were doing some weird stuff. The elevation was high, and things were moving fast. That light patch disappeared a few moments later, and we moved higher. Suddenly a light ray straight from the gods descended upon the land.
We both setup our tripods, frantically searching for ANYTHING to use as a foreground, because we knew it’d be gone any second. I had my shot lined up, but then Haley yelled for me to hit her camera trigger because she was too far away and kept missing her self-portrait timer. We were both frantic.
I realized it was either I help her, or I get my shot. And since it was her birthday, I ran over and hit her trigger. She got an absolute stunner of a light ray shot, something that was pure birthday magic. It couldn’t have been a better treat, given the rainy circumstances. By the time I got back to my camera, it was all over. But she’d nailed it.
We walked away as the sun set, with our feet turning into ice cubes, and Haley was ecstatic. There’s a certain kind of high you get when you know you just took a killer shot. I can’t explain it…
We thought about the insanity that lead us to that moment throughout the day. Earlier we were in the jungle near a tropical lagoon, and now we were freezing our asses of in the rain on a mountain. A complete 180. But we pulled through somehow. The kind of day that only happens in movies.
Crawling back into the warm blankets, we literally slept right on top of the mountain at the overlook. Fuck it. We were too exhausted to drive down that wretched hill.
I woke at 6:30AM to Haley yelling at me to look out the window. I groggily opened the blinds, and peeked through the foggy window full of condensation. I didn’t see anything and rolled back over. “No, LOOK!” I got up again, and focused my eyes. It was a cloud inversion. A mother fucking cloud inversion. Holy shit… We’d been trying to see one of these for years.
I threw on some clothes, and stumbled out of the van into the brisk air with my camera. Here’s the first shot I got:
“Tangerine Marshmallow”
Taken on Sony a7rIII + Sony 70-200mm f/2.8 GM
[ISO 640 ~ 65mm ~ f/4 ~ 1/3200s]
(Want a Print? Get one here.)
And yes, those are FUCKING VOLCANOS in the background. Guatemala, I love you. And Guatemala loves Haley too, apparently. This was her second birthday treat.
We stayed out there for probably an hour and a half, taking in every detail of it. I got some other shots, but that one was easily the best because it had the sunrise gold on it. For context, there’s a MASSIVE city under those clouds.
On the way out, I snagged one more shot of the abandoned house, but from a different angle than last night. The sun was hitting hard by now, lighting up the grass field in front of it nicely and creating an interesting silhouette:
“Modern Aesthetic”
Taken on Sony a7rIII + Sony 70-200mm f/2.8 GM
[ISO 640 ~ 106mm ~ f/11 ~ 1/400s]
(Want a Print? Get one here.)
In that photo, I enjoyed the contrast of the decomposing house with the modern powerlines. Lately I’ve been loving the idea of scoping out two opposite subjects and pairing them together somehow. Makes for a nice challenge.
And with that we ended the day (or started?) on a solid note. That, my friends, is the story of how Haley’s birthday went from absolute shit to absolute glory in just a few hours. Sometimes the unexpected adventures sometimes end up being the best ones.
I swear this country is fucking magic. You won’t believe the shit that happens in the next post. I can’t even.
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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