(1/125s, f/5, ISO200, 115mm)

Our team started this year with two articles in Hungarian travel magazines, Világjáró Magazin – Roads of the Altai and Földgömb Magazin – The Mosquito coast. Also, a series of articles are published in Over Magazin about travel photography, starting in May.

Our summer trips to Mongolia: Mounted expedition with reindeer herders and Gobi Desert Overland Expedition were a huge success, we will be posting photos soon.

The 2010/11 winter season arrives with new and exciting trips, organized through our travel partner, iKaland (the links are in Hungarian):

October 8 – 25 The millennium of the Maya: Discovering history and nature in Guatemala
October 16 – 23 El Mirador: the largest pyramids on Earth
October 30 – November 11 Cuchumatánes Expedition: researching equestrian traditions in the Maya Highlands
November 15 – 28 Wild Mexico: from the Caribbean to the Pacific
December 2 – 15 Río Azul Expedition: in search of lost Maya cities
December 22 – January 6 Cuba on two wheels: expedition to an enchanted land
January 30 – February 12 Río San Pedro Expedition: Following Maya trade routes with canoes
February 19 – March 10 Honduras: the Mosquito-coast in a pipante

(1/60s, f/14, ISO100, 50mm)

We are planning a new trip to Central America, across four countries, visiting the great cities of the Maya Civilisation. Including the best of ancient sites and sights in Guatemala, Honduras, Belize and Mexico, the trip will also reveal some contradictions about the „2012 Maya Prophecy”. More information: info[at]bedouin.hu

(1/250s, f/5, ISO100, 70mm)

A patient boatman waits for clients on the shore of Petén Itza in the light of the setting sun. Previously surviving from fishing, poaching and small-scale agriculture, residents of Flores today make a better-than-average income from tourism.

(1/500s, f/8, ISO400, 70mm)

The best part of the firewood stock is purchased early by locals arriving on horse or by truck.

(1/250s, f/3.2, ISO200, 200mm)

A truckload of melons, a few chicken, plus 15 family members complete with babies. Worn tires and the lack of a windshield on top of it all.

(1/500s, f/8, ISO400, 70mm)

There is a solid white line, the road winds uphill with zero visibility ahead, and I am driving a trailer loaded with extra heavy cargo, so why not overtake that annoyingly slow tuk-tuk? If I meet someone coming downhill, I might as well get back into line. A piece of Central American driver philosophy.

(1/60s, f/2.8, ISO400, 200mm)

Fresh, crispy chilies for sale in Chichicastenango, the largest market of Central America.

(1/640s, f/9, ISO400, 70mm)

In Chichicastenango a sacrificial altar stands on the stairway of the Catholic church. The Maya priests and believers come here and inside the church to pray to their gods, whom they try to please with various offerings. These could be corn whisky, rice, incense or some Coke, but on special days sometimes a whole chicken is sacrificed to ensure a rich harvest or plenty of rain.

(1/25s, f/2.8, ISO100, 70mm)

Tourist bait.

(1/640s, f/7, ISO400, 125mm)

The Mam girl dressed in traditional clothes collects dried horse dung with her little brother, to be used by their mom to cook the usual staple: cornflour tortillas with black bean paste. In this area anyone who can afford a cow or a horse is considered lucky.

(1/500s, f/8, ISO400, 70mm)

The color of mourning is bright, at least when it comes to painting graves. Around the country trees (used as firewood), flowers (plastic, if any) or intricate epitaphs are not so important as a gravestone painted bright pink or blue.

(1/320s, f/6.5, ISO100, 70mm)

One of the favorite pastime of local kids is the whitewater inner tubing. Headed towards the river, they jump into the wild rapids with their inflated rubber tube, emerging a few hundred yards downstream with a few bruises on their bodies.

(1/200s, f/4.5, ISO100, 70mm)

Tintal, a smaller excavation site in Petén faces similar water issues as its neighbor, El Mirador. In the dry season from January till May the area sometimes dries out to such an extent that excavations have to be suspended because there is not enough drinking water for the workers on site. The minimal precipitation that does fall is gathered and used by guards and visitors

(1/200s, f/5, ISO200, 90mm)

Two-year-old Emilia buys some homemade chocolate from Bettina, same age. Both are citizens of Guatemala.

(1/640s, f/6.3, ISO100, 140mm)

Two young boys listen from outside as mass is celebrated at the ruined church. In Sebol, like in many places around Guatemala, a fierce war rages between churches for the support (and money) of the faithful. The Catholics (still the most popular religion) are the usual losers of this competition, while the highest growth rate is reached by Mormons and the Evangelical Christians. One of the reasons of their success is the major financial support from the ministries back in the USA and the personal presence of western missionaries.

(1/125s, f/3.5, ISO100, 125mm)

The two peteneras (someone living in Petén, Guatemala) engage in the same activity as anyone else in their village: every afternoon they gaze at the traffic on the street from the entrance of their home.

(1/400s, f/7, ISO100, 70mm)

Beard-like epiphytes cover the branches of giant trees in the ancient city of El Mirador. Surviving the dry season with the help of their thick, waxy epidermis, small sections of them break off and travel in the air to form new colonies once the rains arrive.

(1/125s, f/11, ISO100, 80mm)

Deep in the Guatemalan jungle lie the ruins of El Mirador, the largest city in the Mayan world according to some researchers. Complex excavation has started only recently, and until today the only means to reach the ruins, 20 miles as the crow flies from the nearest settlement, are by foot or by helicopter. The photo was taken from the top of El Tigre at sunset, the hump on the horizon is pyramid La Danta, with a lonely tree jutting from its peak. Although La Danta reaches higher ASL as our viewpoint, until this day professionals argue about the absolute height of both structures.

(1/250s, f/5.6, ISO100, 70mm)

Homemade bridge with some interesting structural solutions. Greetings to our bridgework engineer friend and enthusiastic supporter, Tibor.

(1/200s, f/5, ISO100, 70mm)

The teachers are on strike again in Guatemala, a yearly occurrence in a country proud of its public education. Higher wages, more holidays and other rights are among their demands, emphasized by complete road blocks. An unanticipated break for the trucker, he calmly slings his hammock under his trailer and starts playing on his mobile phone.

(1/500s, f/8, ISO400, 70mm)

Each year tens of thousands of Maya people move to the slums of large cities, where they live for years on state subsidies or family support before finding work in a world rife with unemployment. In many families small children are the only ones earning any money by vending fruit or other small items along busy highways. Many young people are forced to beg or end up as criminals, further accentuating the theory bespoken by the whiter part of the country: the Maya, boasting a culture many thousand years old, are a lazy, aggressive ethnicity prone to delinquency and posing a deathly threat to the “developed” world. Now where have we heard that before?

Even though we are in a tropical country, at 10,000 feet ASL the climate is chilly. This is the ideal place for a cloud forest, where epiphytes and giant ferns permeate the scenery, and water drips from every plant while the mountain literally swims in the fog.

(1/200s, f/4, ISO100, 105mm)

The colonial era lakefront walkway was renovated in Flores, Guatemala; aided by the rapidly growing tourism in the region. Flores (originally called Noh Petén) is known as the last independent Maya state to hold out against the Spanish conquerors. It was only in 1697 that Hernán Cortes, Catholic conquistador managed to defeat the Itzá tribe of Flores, those that survived the ensuing massacre fled to nearby jungles where they hid for decades.

(1/250s, f/4, ISO100, 150mm)

The colorful Ocellated Turkey (Meleagris ocellata) resides in the Mexican Yucatan Peninsula and northern parts of Belize and Guatemala. Formerly endangered due to excessive poaching and habitat loss, today this species has big populations where it is not hunted. Most frequently spotted in famous archeological parks like Tikal, Palenque or El Mirador, this easily domesticated bird likes to feed around guard shacks and residential areas.

(1/25s, f/2.8, ISO100, 70mm)

With a torch held between her neck and shoulder, Mariela, 17 and mother of two children, prepares tortillas and plantain in maize oil on the adobe stove. Fueled by wood gathered in the nearby forest, it is an average and totally natural way of cooking in these areas.

(1/320s, f/4, ISO100, 200mm)

After shooting his mother, the baby spider monkey was adopted by a family in Petén, Guatemala. Since then, the grandmother became the foster mom, with the insecure primate running up her skirt every time he got frightened. It took him a lot of time to finally present us with his sad game on the rusty undercarriage.

(1/200s, f/5, ISO100, 70mm)

One of the most famous sights in Guatemala is Semuc Champey, getting more and more touristy every year. Rio Cahabon simply disappears underground in the middle of the rain forest, only to re-emerge a few hundred yards downstream. While the frothing river gnaws at the soft limestone deep under, some of the water stays above ground to create lovely, clean pools connected by veils of cascades.

(1/250s, f/4, ISO100, 95mm)

In Guatemala half the family fits on a small motorbike – with ample space for further people. The interpretation (and breaching) of local traffic laws is an appealing (for some appalling) aspect of Latin America.

(1/30s, f/2.8, ISO400, 70mm)

Bedouin Blog is back again, this time from the American continent! The winter break was long, due to dozens of theoretical and practical obstacles, among them a technical malfunction of the SLR mirror of the Canon 5D. The result, as seen on the photo above, is a bit weird. The unorthodox solution turned out to be a few drops of Chinese super glue. In the next months we will regularly update our blog with photos from Belize, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua.

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