HASTA PRONTO – A Farewell to Paradise

As we bid a wistful farewell to magical Zihuatanejo for another year, I share the fifth and final round of my Tequila Shots -- visual sips of this place I find so delicious and intoxicating.

These images pick up on the theme of my previous post, Up Close and Far Away, which invites amateur photographers—in fact, anyone who wants to see the world and life in more nourishing ways—to always be aware of both the exquisite detail and the broader context of virtually everything we experience.

PARADISE LOST – How Vacation Photos Miss the Boat

When one is on vacation, as Sally and I are for a month here in Zihuatanejo, Guerrero, Mexico, one tends to appreciate sweeping new vistas. In our case, it's a tropical climate, with its exotic flora and fauna, cutting in on what was proving a long, grudging dance with a northern-North-America winter. And a whole people with faces, words and customs perhaps different from our own.

We want to paint it all with a broad brush, taking long shots of the sea, the beach...maybe the bar.  Look, Facebook friends, I am here!—we want them to see as much as possible in one or two photos. About as close to details we come is when we take pictures of the people we're sharing that experience with. And too many of those are taken quite spontaneously, with no regard for a background that might impart even the slightest notion of specifically where we are.

I've finally come to realize...why the question, "Want to see our vacation photos?" elicits more lame excuses than "Can you help us move?"

A SENSE OF PLACE
Believe me, I've taken a few of exactly that kind of photo. But I've finally come to realize—most often weeks later when I show them to someone else—why the question, "Want to see our vacation photos?" elicits more lame excuses than "Want to help me move?" The reason? Most of those images have no soul.

So in recent years, though I still shoot the occasional "look where I am and who's with me here" landscape and portrait, I've found myself drawn to more subjects I hope will capture a deeper sense of place and culture.

Here are some of those soul shots I've taken this month in and around Zihuatanejo. Images capturing very specific places—some of them no bigger than a square foot; the colors, shapes and patterns of a certain natural environment and a particular culture. And people—most often not posing, but captured at play or on the job, perhaps in a joyous or pensive or poignant moment.

If you're still with me to this point, I think you can tell that, every year, I leave more here in this lovely town than a chunk of dinero; I also leave a piece of my heart.

The Holy Week crowd of Mexican tourists begins on Playa La Ropa

Yeah! Maybe that older guy with the limp and the camera!

Up and away!

Primordial patterns

The breezy colors of la Calle Adelita

Sign-painting crew about to add sponsors' logos to firemen tribute

To every season...even if it's only two

Still life with fertility goddess and re-bar

Proud mamá and her beautiful little girl

Sí, I am zi one zat inspired Godzilla

She's kept an eye out for fashion trends along Juan Alvarez for nearly a decade.

Entrance to the Vega household

One of Zihuatanejo's excellent strolling minstrels - a dying breed

Yellow-crowned night heron

Who is this young man whose passport photo settled into this crude stairway?

Fish guts - one of Zihuatanejo's many stunning murals

Banded Peacock - Anartia fatima

POOR, RICH AND RIGHTEOUS – Top 25 Images of Cuba

Cuba is like that weird uncle no one ever sees any more. Once the life of the party—an anything-goes spree destination for well-heeled American socialites, celebrities and the mob—the exotic country just 90 miles south of Key West suddenly became persona non grata.

So close, yet so far away.

While visiting Cuba the first two weeks of November, I was struck by the obvious effects, not just of the half-century US embargo, but of the influences of other countries—especially Russia and China—stepping in as allies. Given such connections, one wonders how the communist government, though providing certain first-world benefits like free health care and education, has managed to deprive so many of its citizens, for so long, of any broader sense of prosperity.

No sooner do the airs of one lively salsa or rhumba band fade than those of another two blocks ahead rise to the ear.

But Cubans count assets other than a high standard of living as it is understood elsewhere in the world. The flavors of their diverse heritage—European, African and Indigenous—blend in a savory stew of cultural energy. A distinct pride of survivorship keeps the great Revolution on low simmer, still evident in folks' erect bearing and in defiant propaganda splashed on walls and billboards. And Cubans are nothing if not resourceful, scrimping, saving and improvising to make do with their limited resources.

ISLAND RHYTHMS
The country's lush, tropical landscapes, from jungle to beach to highland coffee plantation, are breathtakingly beautiful. There's a surprisingly strong sense, even when one is beyond sight of the ocean, of this being an island—something, I suppose, about how the air feels and smells, and how close even a distant thunderstorm seems to loom.

Even gritty La Habana Vieja, old-town Havana, though at first glance a ruin, holds its own charms. Through the structural decay shine glimpses of grander days. Some landlords have managed a bit of restoration, even if it's only a fresh coat of paint. Here and there, vibrant art delights and challenges the eye, and music is everywhere—no sooner do the airs of one lively salsa or rhumba band fade than those of another two blocks ahead rise to the ear.

While a people can hardly be characterized by a tourist's limited impressions, I found the Cubans I met on the streets and in the countryside to be friendly, welcoming, curious…and surprisingly optimistic. Most are excited about the thaw in relations with the US, looking forward to new opportunities and reunions with long-separated family members living there.

EYE OF THE BEHOLDER
I can't share all the warm smiles, the welcoming handshakes, the tastes and smells, the music's beat. Those you will have to experience for yourself.* But I can offer a few of the images I captured with my camera. Of the 1,000-plus I snapped, here are my best 25.
* Keep an eye here and on my other blog, One Man's Wonder, for my upcoming post on how you can spend a couple of amazing weeks in Cuba—legally—for less than $1,500, about a third the price charged by most tour companies.