I went to Los Angeles this past weekend for the Pictures of the Year International Awards and to make a presentation with my former co-workers and good friends Beth Macy and Seth Gitner who I shared the Best Documentary Prize with for a series we worked on last year called Age of Uncertainty.  It was a huge honor for us, and we were very humbled by the other photographers and producers with whom we were with.

POYi went over the top for the program, which had a beautiful gallery at the Annenberg Space for Photography.  I met some great photographers from all over the world, saw some old friends and enjoyed the time.  Seth and I took a walk through Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills near the hotel which was a trip to say the least…or at least it seemed to be the opposite of Mexico.

We’re wrapping up our year here in Mexico, and it was nice to take a short break from Guadalajara before returning now for the final two weeks.

Sadly, it’s already mid-year through the Fulbright, and for that the Becarios (grantees) gathered in Mexico City this past week for a mid-term reunion, to make short presentations of what we’ve been up to all these months.  The work and range of projects is simply amazing, from the creative to the science and everything in between.

It was also a chance to see some friends we’d made in September when we first arrived, and to make new friends.  On Saturday, 22 of us traveled the 1.5 hour ride in 5 cabs to Xochimilco, a series of canals just south of this huge city, once the flower-growing area of the District.  Now it’s a place for Chilangos and guests to relax for an afternoon on the lanchas, cruising slowly in the crowded canals with a few micheladas, corn, and coconut ice cream.

James Breiner, a Knight Fellow working in Guadalajara, it seems was there the same day as us, and has some good history on his blog on Xochimilco.  Missy also has some good info and anecdotes.

It was a great decision to take a break from working on issues of migration of people and spend a day photographing and watching the migration of 20 million monarch butterflies, as they gather in one of several reserves in the Mexican state of Michoacan for the winter.  We were lucky, unlike this fellow Fulbrighter, and the day was sunny which meant the butterflies were full in flight, and moving all around us….simply amazing.

The butterflies are so many that you can hear the flapping of their wings as the move around over and under.  Anywhere there was water, several thousand would gather sipping from the natural springs that bubbled up at over 10,000 feet above sea level.  Unfortunately, I didn’t have my video camera, which I think is the best way to show it, but we were able to put some clips together with Missy’s point and shoot (and with some silly music) put together a video below.

The butterflies stay in Mexico through March, and I highly recommend this to anyone!  Thanks to our friends Meghan and Liam for transportation, setting up the whole weekend, and great company….and as usual, Missy’s blog has much more information than mine….

Last weekend, we went off to Morelia with friends Liam and Meghan for a three-day weekend to visit the monarch butterly sanctuaries.  We stayed in the capital of the state of Michoacan, in Morelia, which was a beautiful place to get away from Guadalajara.  We only visited the historic center, but loved the colonial buildings, the lack of grafiti covering everything, and the amount of activity in the plazas on the weekends.  I’m nearly convinced that every photo in Mexican tour books that isn’t taken at the beach or in the desert may have been taken in the center of Morelia.

It was Valentine’s weekend, so the balloon vendors were out in full force, as we were treated to a children’s dance performance.

For a day trip, we took a excursion to Guachimontones an archeological site about 35 miles (read 3-hour bus ride) from Guadalajara.  The trip itself was a little frustrating because it took SO long, and our bus driver was a maniac, but it was wonderful to be out of the city.  The site is very unknown as far as who lived there and who built it, but it’s an amazing place, peaceful and quiet (the opposite of Guadalajara).  Visit Missy’s blog for more info (as always).

In my last few days of my USA east coast trip over new years….in NYC with Emily and Alan, here in Virginia with friends and Sally (who has aged somewhat).  Heading to Athens, GA on Saturday to see Mom and Dad for the last leg of a great few weeks.

Last week our first visitors from middle North America came to visit us…our very good friends Pete and Angie from Roanoke.  It was a bit of a flip of roles from last March when we visited them in San Luis Potosi where they were living while Angie was on her Fulbright.

We packed a lot into the week, beginning with an birthday celebration of the late Mexican mural painter José Clemente Orozco at Hospicio Cabanas where Missy takes her painting class twice a week, and Orozco’s work is featured on the ceilings.  The celebration was complete with kids (including those from CODENI) painting their own Orozco-esque paintings outside, as well as Mariachi and tequila.

Unfortunately due to the rules of the arena, I was unable (as of now…stay tuned for pix from there in the future) to take pictures at the Lucha Libre event.  Though I have never been a fan at all of professional wrestling, this was unbelieveable. The four of us were shocked, hoarse and totally pumped to say the least when we left.

The next morning, without any planning we decided to head to the beach, in the state of Colima, and only because it is the closest beach to Guadalajara.  Rented a car (third time driving in the city in a week) and headed out.  After a quick stop in Cuyitlan, where there was nothing open, we were directed to the small friendly community of Paraiso, which became our home for the next couple of days.

There we quickly found delicious food, a horrible but cheap hotel, and met a few fisherman at the local bar, who after a few drinks together, invited us to join them at 7 am for their daily outing into the Pacific to check their nets.  Angie decided to take a late night dip into the ocean on the way home, and amazingly we remembered to set alarms and actually woke up the next morning.

The lancha trip was unbelievable.  Pete and I helped the men swing the boats around on the beach, and then we accompanied them through the large waves out into the sea, where our boat’s captain caught about 25 beautiful fish, including Huachinanga (Red Snapper).  We spent the rest of the day literally eating, sleeping or swimming before returning early the next morning to meet Angie and Pete’s former neighbors Bety and her daughter Adriana, who traveled to Guadalajara from San Luis Potosi.

We’re really looking forward to our next guests…hint hint….

For a short 3-day trip, we rented a car for our first Mexican driving experience and drove northwest to the coast of Nayarit.  We stayed in San Blas, a small town on the beach that was devistated by a hurricane a few years ago.  We and about 10 other people shared a 3 mile section of beach with soft sand, and perfect bodysurfing waves.

Also during our trip was the national Revolution Day celebration on November 20th, when the town hosts a huge parade with school groups in costumes, the Mexican Navy. and a group of guys dancing to “Macho Man” and wearing hard hats…hmmmm.

Took an evening trip to a small town called Sauta, where in 2006 I worked on an immigration story for a week.  Unfortunately, we only stopped there for the evening rodeo, and the workers who spend 9 months  a year in Virginia, hadn’t returned home to their families yet, so I didn’t see anyone I knew.

On the way home, we stopped in Platanitas, a wonderful very very little town and had THE most delicious meal of fish on the grill (see last photo.)

Our great friends Pete and Angie are here from Roanoke this week, and we are so excited to have our first visitors.

For my 35th birthday, we were taken on a great day trip to a lake at Santa Maria del Oro, with Annie, Jose, Panzon and Elena.  Stopped off in the town of Tequila to, well, buy some, and taste the heart of the agave plant, from which the famous liquor made.  The lake made for a wonderful place to swim and relax.  Thanks to the Annie-Jose family for a great day.

I know that two wrongs don’t make a right, but after living here for three months, and using our bicycles to get around most of the time, we were seeking some sweet revenge on the buses, cars and even pedestrians.  Every first Thursday of the month, over 3000 cyclists gather at Parque Revoluncion to ride about an hour on some of Guadalajara’s busiest and largest roads, blocking traffic, frustrating buses and cars and making a lot of noise.  Perhaps the best was going through the tunnels that bypass certain neighborhoods and getting passed in the tunnel by a double-decker bike ridden by a guy in a gorilla suit.  Ah Mexico.

We traveled to Patzcuaro in the heart of the state of Michoacan for a long weekend of camping with our good friends Naomi and Jose, Fulbrighters from Queretaro, and Annie, Super, Panzon and baby Elena.  Thanks to a gracious invitation from Octavio, a Spanish tutor of Missy’s we had the luck to camp in Quercus, a wonderful little community outside of Patzcuaro, where we were treated to cool evenings, a wonderful campfire, and the lovely sounds of three collies howling through the night, roosters starting at 4 a.m. and a party up on a hill.

On the Day of the Dead, we traveled by boat to the small island Janitzio, on Lake Patzcuaro, where tens of thousands of people came to eat, drink and visit the communities on the island.  Simply amazing amounts of delicious food and drink on the streets, as we climbed up a very steet set of steps to the top.  We headed in for the night a bit before the huge crowds began to gather on the island.

The next day we saw Annie and Super and family off from the small community of Tzintzuntzan, a P’urépecha town which has the most beautifully decorated cemeteries.  I shot very few photos because I felt that flying in and out of cemeteries and shooting on the fly was disrespectful for the families who had spent the entire night by the graves of their family members.

We tried to visit the archeological sites at Tzintzuntzan, but were greeted by a sign at the door that said it was free entry on Sundays, but only for Mexicans…so not wanting to take part in their racist rule of the day, (can you imagine such a sign in the U.S. “free only to Americans today”) we didn’t pay their entry fee.

Today was Mexico’s Independence Day, actually the eve of the Independence Day.  I was excited to cover the event, but the weather was pretty horrible to work in, with a near steady rain or downpour most of the evening.  Still, the crowds were unbelievable, and in the center, I was packed in the midst of a huge crowd of people all awaiting the “grito” or shout from Guadalajara’s political leaders.  At 11 p.m. the announcer yells ” Viva” before listing the name of every independence fighter from the early 1800s, and the crowd answers, “VIVA”.

Avenida de 16 de Septiembre was closed to traffic, which made a wonderful spot to walk with families.  Everyone was in a great mood, some more drunk than others.  I don’t know what I expected or why I was surprised that the crowd was that big, since I had been forewarned, but it was less-than-ideal shooting conditions since I was stuck in one spot the whole time, switching back and forth between photographing the people around me, and the fireworks overhead, all the while recording audio.

We made it back to the apartment, completely soaked, and exhausted.  Unfortunately the large crowd and flu-symptoms were rough on Missy, but she was a block away to hear and watch the excitement from the square.  I think had the weather been more pleasant we could have enjoyed the festivities more, and we were sad to have missed a little Fulbright gathering in Guanajuato that we opted out on, but hopefully we’ll get together with friends from Fulbright soon enough.

Wow, where to begin? OK. Guadalajara is huge…4.5 million people. No, Mexico City is huge, at least 22 million people. Overwhelming to say the least, but wonderful all the same.

Last week was a full week of orientation for the Fulbright program. This year there are more than 80 Fulbrighters, the largest of any previous year. Tim Wright, who is a Roanoke College graduate as it turns out, and his crew kept us busy throughout the week with speeches and presentations by experts in Mexican history, human rights, and politics. In between these presentations, we had a chance to take some quick, but informational tours of Teotihuacan, a prehispanic community of over 300,000 people just outside of Mexico City. There we climbed the Pyramid of the Sun and learned as much as we could from our knowledgeable guide in a few hours.

We also visited the Palacio Nacional, where famous Mexican painter Diego Rivera has several massive murals depicting the history of the land of Mexico and its people. I could have stared into that mural for hours, but as was typical for the week’s activities, we had more to do than we had time for.

The best part of the week, bar none, was meeting the other Fulbrighters, some of the smartest and most interesting people I know. We spent the week learning about eachother’s projects, interests, specialties and, most important, where each person is going to live in Mexico. One of the great things about this program, is having fellow grantees living in so many different and interesting places, and being able to visit one another.

Each Fulbrighter and their dependients as their called (which is Missy) were invited to a Mexican Fulbrighter’s home for dinner on Wednesday night. To give you an idea of how large this city is, Missy and I rode in a taxi for 2 and a quarter hours and were still in the heart of the city. We finally made it to the home of Cesar and his two siblings and his parents. Cesar will be doing his Fulbright next year in the U.S., in either L.A., Massachusetts or Georgetown, studying international relations. His mother cooked us the best tasting pozole, a soup of hominy, chicken and sauce, and we stayed until after midnight talking, sharing information on music and Mexican and U.S. traditions. It really was a wonderful night.

Thursday night was the big dress up time. I had to buy a tie and nice slacks before I left Guadalajara, because we attended a little welcoming party at the home of the #2 in command at the U.S. Embassy. It was interesting seeing the Fulbrighters all dressed up after spending a few days sitting together in jeans, or climbing the pyramids of teotihuacan. It was also the night of Barack Obama’s acceptance speech at the Democratic Convention in Denver, so just as we got back, about a dozen of us crammed into a hotel room with a bottle of Tequila to watch the speech about an hour late on MSNBC. It was a wonderful Fulbright moment, I thought.

It was sad to say good-bye after so many packed days with so many wonderful people, but we did a lot of cell phone and email exchanging at the close of the week, and made promises to travel to one another’s homes for visits or even collaboration on work. We’ll definitely be making a trip to the state of Queretaro, where Jose and Naomi will be working with art therapy. I have to go there anyway to back-track the path of the Otomi, and now we have friends to visit.

Instead of heading back directly to Guadalajara, we were lucky enough to be taken in by David, who showed up to pick up four of us for a night out, with none other than my host in Guadalajara, Danielle, who made a quick visit to Mexico City for some great news. She was invited to be a part of a national panel of experts on children’s rights and relevant issues. So, Missy and I spent the weekend in David’s very modern, very cool (see pictures of his coffee table/stove design) apartment in the hip neighborhood of Coyoacan. The laid back weekend gave us a chance to catch up on sleep and visit the Frida Khalo museum, which luckily is in the neighborhood.

I should be back to more regular postings now that I’m back in Guadalajara.