My Way Is The Highway

CANYONS AND BACKCOUNTRY RUINS of Southeast Utah

Last year, I was following a seasoned westerner into a steep canyon. Once on the canyon floor we must have barely walked for ten minutes when he stopped and turned. He made me turn. “Can you find your way back?” He asked me. I stood aghast. The trail that I had used a few minutes ago seemed to have disappeared. The canyon stood in front of me like a wall. He laughed. I felt like an idiot.

In order to correct this situation, I planned a trip to Utah prepared to walk some canyons alone and to get myself out unharmed. Like swimming in the open ocean, skiing down a slow covered in fresh powder or diving from an airplane tethered to a parachute, the only way to do it, is to do it. 

*  *  *  *  *

I had spent a month in preparation for there are many ways to die in this rugged country.

One can as easily die here of thirst as of drowning. Of over-confidence or panic. Of heat or cold. Of under-preparation or over-carrying. Of heart ache – loneliness or overexertion, or heart burst – premature jubilation or being unknowledgeable. Of being overtly cautious or extrovertly ambitious.  Death can be cruel, quick and ruthless or kind, slow and caring.

I had read everything that was there to read. I was dressed in layers, shod in appropriate shoes, carried a gallon of water in different bottles in various pockets of my backpack. I had a generous supply of almonds and fruit-bars with me. A waterproof copy of the BLM terrain map of the Grand Gulch was secreted in a compartment on my back. I had color photocopies of the canyons I was planning to enter tucked in my shirt pocket. I had a hi-fidelity GPS app running on my fully charged iPhone and I carried a fully charged backup charger.

Heck, I even had a three inch knife with Bear Grylls’ signature inscribed on the hilt.

I felt prepared.

*  *  *  *  *

THE MAYAN RUINS OF COPAN

This blog post is part of of our trip to Guatemala and Honduras in Dec 2012 amidst the evocative Mayan ruins in a lush jungle, a quaint lazy colonial town and a tropical Caribbean beach. Other articles in this series: Tikal Sunrise and Sunset Spots for Photographers | Astronomical Observatory of Uaxactun |Smoking Frog of Uaxactun | Following Frederick Catherwood | The Mayan Ruins of Copán |The Modern Town of Copán |

December 2012

I sit on a boulder besides a dusty single lane road not too far from the Guatemala-Honduras border. A centuries old grotesque statue of an old man lies half buried a couple of feet away. Rio Copán happily gurgles somewhere behind me. In front lies a lush verdant valley with dotted with fields of tobacco and plantation. From a nearby tree, a macaw suddenly takes flight, spreading its colorful wings luxuriously gliding over an unfelt air current drifting away silently into the horizon. A howler monkey crashes through the tree falling freely, hurtling to certain death towards the ground when at the very last moment it pulls itself up by the thinnest of a branch and swings away nonchalantly.

The landscape is shrouded by mist that swirls over two towns within half a mile of each other. On my right, the modern town of Copán is deep in slumber after the late night spent in Christmas revelry. It will wake up in a few hours. But not the ancient town of Copán on my left because it has been asleep for the last thirteen centuries.

But make no mistake. Copán is far from dead. Having witnessed its peak in the eighth century, it rapidly diminished in power sometime after that and was lost to the undergrowth until it was discovered by a dynamic duo of adventurers in the mid-nineteenth century. Befitting the ancient Mayan traditional belief in afterlife, today it lives a another life.

Japanese willow resplendent in fall colors, Kubota Garden, Seattle

I got a couple of good shots during my last visit to Kubota garden, but I was not satisfied. That day was overcast and I did not get to capture what I had started out for - fall colors backlit by the sun.

The next few days, Seattle was shrouded in a heavy cloak of fog and clouds. Not a ray of sunlight escaped the seize. I did my part. I kept the camera ready in the boot of my car just to take advantage of the vagaries of nature, if such a chance came my way.

Coming out of a meeting, I realized that the sky heavily overcast an hour ago had cleared and a soft sunset was on its way. I ran to my car and pointed it across the bridge to Kubota garden. As I reached the garden, the sun had already started dipping behind the tall fir trees and I rushed to the east most part of the garden.

There, just for under five minutes, a Japanese maple was bathed in the most glorious light. Now I am satisfied.

Seattle Fall Colors @ Kubota

Three years ago while wandering through the farmers market, I was drawn to a stall exhibiting a photo of a massive tree resplendent in fall colors bending over a water body. After praising the image lavishly I innocently asked the lady where it was taken. Hesitatingly she confessed that it was taken at the Kubota Garden in Seattle.

“But don’t fool yourselves in believing that you can go there and come back with a photo like this.” 

I was taken aback by the attitude. I silently paid $3.99 to buy a postcard of her photo and have been keeping it on my desk ever since.

Finally I got to shoot it.

What I thought was a massive tree is no more than 3 feet tall! No wonder she did not mind challenging me. Now I can’t wait for the farmers market to open next year so that I can go show it to her.

Greek Odyssey: Two Weeks in Athens, Delphi, Peloponnese and Santorini

“Papi, Can I pick our next vacation destination?”

I froze at my 11 year old’s innocent question. Don’t get me wrong. She is a sport all right. She has trampled museums all over the world without complaining. Followed me without protesting to a myriad of dusty ruins. She has braved long flights and longer waits at the airports.

I was still skeptical. “Here comes, Orlando?” I thought.

“Greece?” Her beautiful oval eyes wide open with anticipation.

I must have jumped with joy. I myself was deep in the middle of Iliad and Troy and Alexander and Achilles. I would have picked Greece myself. The trip was signed off in seconds.

* * *

Greece has touched my life on so many fronts. India is the largest democracy in the world, but it all started in Greece. (India is also the largest bureaucracy in the world. That too, started in Greece and still continues.) Pythagoras had me floored  before I was twelve, Euclid before I was fifteen. Ayn Rand introduced me to the Parthenon a little later in her path breaking novel Fountainhead. Alexander, the Macedonian, is a personal hero, his feats – oh, so un-accomplishable. After him, “all was possible.” His teacher, Aristotle has has taught me a thing or two. Achilles is my hero’s hero.

* * * 

Most Greek itineraries are focused on talking you to the islands. The islands are beautiful but the mainland has a lot to offer. People just don’t know about it.  Ignoring all standard itineraries, I setout to design our own. The battle of Troy was high on my mind. I wanted to see where it all began. I want to see the Palace of Agamemnon. I want to visit the Oracle of Delphi.  I wanted to touch the soil that Helen once did.

* * *

Here is how it turned out…

CANYON DE CHELLEY Rim View

A very dear friend had a strange complaint – you always write about places you have been to.

Ok. Duh! No?

Hampi Photography Trip – Sun on the Rocks

Vitthala Temple Courtyard, Hampi

I have been to Hampi twice - in 2000 and 2008, before I was bitten, respectively, by the travel and the photography bug. The two trips could not have been more different. Not knowing what to expect, on my first visit I was introduced to the evocative ruins of the erstwhile Vijayanagara kingdom, perpetually lighting a spark in me that led to the second, for which I came prepared with a long list of things I had to see. It led to a mad dash through rocks and ruins under a blazing April sun.

Since then, I have been to other places in the world. At first, at a hurried, frantic, fast pace. But eventually, I learned to travel slow. Few flights, fewer hotels, two or three cities in a trip, experiencing more of a place than more places… 

That is when I am not on a photography trip. The sole purpose of a photography trip is to come home with beautiful photos. Relaxation and fun is not on the agenda. In fact, my chances of returning with “keepers” is extremely bleak if by the end of the trip, I am not sleep deprived, fatigued and cranky.

This third trip to Hampi was decidedly a photography trip right from the beginning.

Square Tower House Ruins, Mesa Verde National Park

A four story ancient adobe tower nestles in the alcove below the rim I am standing in Mesa Verde National Park. Constructed in the mid 1200s, Square Tower House was the tallest man-made structure in the United States of America until mid 1800s!

From the edge of the slickrock, looking down at the Anasazi village, I feel like I am looking down into a petri dish through a microscope. The ruins don’t look like real buildings. They look like a scaled down display model, that architects create as prototypes, ones that are found in in museums halls. Time and weather has not crumpled their roofs to dust. Rather, the roofs were never built, gaping holes left open intentionally to peer inside.

How I wish I were standing here in the middle of the 12th century, somehow magically, retaining my gleaming air-conditioned automobile parked a few feet away, and my phone. (Who would I call though?)

Then, as the sun peeps over the horizon, and the sun rays slowly light up the valley, I would hear the unmistakable shuffling of feet. A door creaks open and a head pops out. A turkey squawks somewhere in the brush. Pungent white smoke escapes from a trapezoidal window, the dry pinyon crackling as it catches fire. A child wails, quickly muted against his mother’s teat.

Then, I would be the only non-ancestral pueblon to have seen an Anasazi village slowly coming to life. 

Tikal NP, Guatemala Copán and Roatan, Honduras Trip Summary

 

Evocative Mayan ruins in a lush jungle, a quaint lazy colonial town and a tropical Caribbean beach – summarizes the theme of this trip.

It started with visiting a key Maya site, Tikal National Park on winter solstice of 2012 when a major Mayan calendar period was complete. A diving adventure, an incentive for Rhea, made Roatan necessary and my research brought me across an enterprising artist called Catherwood, which made a stop at Copan in Honduras necessary. Lot of hiking, lichen painted ruins in vine shrouded jungle, colorful macaws, hospitable people, warm sand, blue water, mind blowing sunrises and sunsets made this trip well rounded and memorable.

(At the age of 11,) Rhea puts it in her top three vacations of all times. 

The Story of Lord Smoking Frog and the Star Wars of Uaxactun

 

This blog post is part of of our trip to Guatemala and Honduras in Dec 2012 amidst the evocative Mayan ruins in a lush jungle, a quaint lazy colonial town and a tropical Caribbean beach. Other articles in this series: Tikal Sunrise and Sunset Spots for Photographers | Astronomical Observatory of Uaxactun |Smoking Frog of Uaxactun | Following Frederick Catherwood | The Mayan Ruins of Copán |The Modern Town of Copán |

 

“Don’t they all look the same to you? Do you have to got to each one of them? Isn’t seeing one like seeing them all?” My friend, who I will not name, asked.

I stared at him in disbelief. Upon being inquired, I was excitedly showing him all the Mayan pyramids and temples I was planning to visit during our trip to Guatemala.  I searched for a suitable answer but all I could remember is a story I had heard when I was a kid. A man confessed to a English professor that he had never read Shakespeare’s work. The professor, aghast, promptly responded. “Dear sir! That in itself is your punishment!”