All posts tagged: quintana roo

How to Possess Your Travels

Most people can’t help buy souvenirs and take photographs while on vacation. These two activities provide the simplest way remember the journey taken and take a piece of it home. Yet do they really enhance our experience? In an earlier post, I wrote how the impulse to document our lives with photos increases when we travel to beautiful places. The connection between buying souvenirs and taking photographs became clear to me as I sailed to the Manchones Reef on a small dive boat in Isla Mujeres, Mexico off the coast of Cancun. Not long ago, it was a tiny fisherman’s island. As Cancun turned into the decaying resort-town it is today, the island’s sand streets also gave way to paved roads and shabby hotels. Nevertheless, Isla Mujeres still remains a haven of calm in comparison to the degenerated concrete that is Cancun. So I jumped on the ferry and sailed straight to the island as soon as my flight landed. The plan was to get over my jetlag while relaxing on the beach. The only thing I wanted to “do” while over …

On the Obsession of Travel Photography

A few weeks ago, I ate dinner with Barbara—a woman also staying at Hostel La Candelaria in Valladolid in Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula. Valladolid is frequented by travelers and backpackers alike for its proximity to Chichen Itza, Ek Balam, and breathtaking cenotes–natural sinkholes–scattered about the Yucatan state. Barbara showed me Google photos of Rio Lagartos, a coastal town north of Valladolid where pink flamingos roam free. Even though she failed to recruit any other hostel dwellers to join her day-trip, she was determined to take the two-hour bus ride to the lagoon and photograph the flamingos. “I will go there and take photos of pink flamingos. And they’d better be there or else I will Photoshop them into the picture!” she said. I couldn’t be sure whether her priority was to actually see the flamingos or possess first-hand photos of them. I had previously written about the transformative effects of being filmed on the experience of diving. Barbara’s excitement to possess images of pink flamingos prompted a renewed contemplation over a subject that has long agitated me. As …