Father's Day
Watch the video This is a video of our Father's Day trip to El Chiflon waterfalls in Chiapas, near Comitan. We spent the day swimming (actually trying to not get knocked over by the current), picnicking and hiking up to the larger falls above the swimming area. We saw lots of lizards, butterflies and even a small bird that had fallen from it's nest. The falls are spectacular. We went up to the last lookout, just below the falls, although I had to leave my camera with someone below because the spray from the falls would have ruined it. At the last lookout you are just below the falls on a smal rock outcrop. The spray from the waterfalls comes up at you from below. The wind from the falls was strong (this is the highest I've seen the water level there) and standing on top of this rock below the falls with the sun directly above we had a rainbow below us in a perfect 360 circle. Next time I'm bringing a protective cover for my camera so I can film that. It was a great Father's day.

Guadalupe Rockets Redux
Watch the video Back in January I posted a short video of the amazing rockets (cuetes) shot off during the Guadalupe fiesta (http://blip.tv/file/8548). Here's a video shot by my friend Bruce Ferguson of the same celebration. If you look closely about 19 seconds into the video, just slightly above center you can see me kneeking down, with my eye glued to the viewfinder, getting a closeup view of the rocket launches. The thumbnail for this video has a red circle superimposed so that you can see me. Bruce got a nice overall long shot of the celebration, but I was following the advice of war photographer Robert Capa: "If your pictures aren`t good enough, you aren't close enough." (http://www.time.com/time/europe/magazine/article/0,13005,901020708-267730,00.html)

Dolphins in the Bow Wake
Watch the video Well, my big project is over and I'll be able to spend more time on video. Here's some video I shot back in April when my son Norm was here visiting. We went down to Puerta Arista and did some fishing. We launched the boat through the surf and went out a few kilometers into the Pacific. We saw quite a few dolphins out there, doing the same thing we were: fishing. In fact the best fishing was when we were running with the dolphins. This footage is of a group of dolphins following us and playing in the bow wake of our small boat. I was hanging out over the bow and got some great footage. The fish my son catches at the end of this clip is a bonito, a type of small tuna.

Midnight Marimba: Santa Cruz Fiesta, Suchiapa
Watch the video My compadres Gil and Candelaria live in Suchiapa, one of my favorite places in all of Mexico. Why? Because it's a very friendly place and it has lots of very colorful and heartfelt fiestas. We've gone down for the Santa Cruz fiesta before, but this year Gil asked if we could come down and stay over on April 29th. That's when the rompamiento of the fiesta is and they start with a midnight marimba party, which this year occured in the street in front of my compadre's house. We had been working hard to finish up a publishing project and we worked until about 8:30 Saturday night. We arrived in Suchiapa around 10:45. The street was blocked off a couple of blocks from Gil's house. I told the cop that they had to let us through "Because my compadre lives there and he's waiting for us". The cop waved us on through. This clip shows the crowd in the street dancing to the marimba music at about midnight. You'll fisrt see my compadres Gil and Candelaria, then my wife Rocio dancing with our daughter Angie, then my friends Steve and June who are here on an extended visit, then I dance with Angie . More clips to come. Enjoy

Carnaval
Watch the video We went down to see the Carnaval celebration in Ocozocoatla last Sunday. It's a spectacular parade with lots of very colorful costumes, music and pandamonium. A local custom is that the onlookers and the parade participants throw flour and talc powder at each other and spray foam at everone. You can see the foam and flour in the air in a lot of this video. It's a pretty wild time; very festive and just this side of chaos. Very Mexican. Hope you enjoy.

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