Until next time, Isla…
This will be my last post on this trip to Isla Mujeres. I’ve already done a post on why Isla lovers love Isla, but I will reiterate. No matter how many times I go there, I will never be able to believe how blue the water is. I am amazed every single time. And that is probably one of the reasons I keep going back. I think once you’ve seen it, you’re hooked. And photographs don’t do it justice…it’s something you just have to see to believe. I think that’s why they painted the Ultramar ferries yellow. Since blue is the opposite of yellow on the color wheel, both colors seem to pop when you put them together.
Then there are the beautiful beaches…
And the peaceful boats bobbing in the water…
Like I said before, Isla is a healing place…a place where you can leave all your worries behind and let the breezes and the mesmerizing water take you away.
I saw a wedding on the Posada del Mar beach one day. I’d like to think that a marriage that starts on Isla would be one that would last forever. (I know…that’s the romantic in me.)
Here’s a happier picture of this little sweetie…
This would sure make a nice shop for some kind of business. But between the lousy economy and the bad publicity about Mexico, it would probably be a risk…especially since it’s not on Hidalgo or Medina.
Here’s a little fixer-upper on the south end of the malecon. It looks small, but just imagine what a nice deck you could put in that empty space which would look out to the sea. Food for thought. I wonder how much it is.
So, I was coming back from Playa Norte one day, and I took a picture of this place just as he was coming out the front door. It made me think. The vast majority of natives on the island are very, very poor. What must it be like to totally rely on comfortable tourists to make their very meager living?
And to see all these people coming off boats (who kind of remind me of lemmings as they’re walking down the pier) to have fun, spend money, have a bunch of cervezas and margaritas…and then go back to their homes with flat screen TVs and granite countertops. Most of these natives will never have that. And we can pretend that they’re happy living the way they are, but how patronizing is that…especially when they see wealthy strangers spending lots of money while they’re there? They will try to get by as best as they can by selling their goods, but they will always have a very hard life just trying to make a living. Civilization has introduced a whole new world to Isla which is inevitable, but I can’t say that it’s good. More and more foreigners are buying property there. I would venture to say that Isla will eventually be an island full of foreigners because they will make it too expensive and impossible for native Mexicans to stay there. How sad that would that be?
This place is also along the malecon, which could probably bring in hundreds of thousands of dollars. I’m glad that the owner is still holding out and living there no matter how unappealing the place may look to tourists.
So, it’s time to leave. I was sad, but for a different reason. I want to go to Mexico to experience Mexico. While I enjoy meeting new people, when I’m there, I want to meet the locals. I can meet Americans every day of my life, so it’s not on the top of my list to meet Americans when I’m in Mexico. Call me strange. In fact, I cringe when I see the stereotypical loud-mouthed, arrogant foreigners who act like they know everything and have that “attitude” like they’re seasoned travelers. Give me a break. They’re the ones who complain if the bathroom isn’t up to par or they didn’t get a lime with their cerveza. While I was waiting for the ferry on my trip back, I had the pleasure of listening to a man in a group who who was wearing a fedora and wielding a cane going on and on about all his experiences. I wanted to grab the cane and hit him with it. Those are the times when I’m embarrassed for my so-called fellow Americans.
So, here I am back in “civilization” at the Cancun airport. Yay. (NOT)
I decided to have a last one of these while waiting for my flight…
…and Alan Jackson…
…and couldn’t resist getting a shot of this woman’s boots waiting in line to get on the plane in front of me. Definitely back in civilization. They kind of reminded me of the wicked witch of the west’s shoes when the house fell on her and the toes of her boots curled up. Hell would freeze over before I would wear these…well, maybe on Halloween.
Since this is my last post on Isla, I’m going to start doing some posts on prior visits to Mexico…like Valladolid, Tulum, Chichen Itza, Puerto Morelos, etc. It will be like re-living some of my vacations and giving me the opportunity to redo some of my photos. And Spring break is coming up…who knows what that will bring!
Hasta luego, Isla…
Isla Slideshow
Since I didn’t really have an agenda on my last visit to Isla (other than a side trip to Akumal), I don’t have any stories to tell. So, I’m just going to post a slideshow of some miscellaneous photos. I think music enhances slideshows, but not everyone wants to hear it, so if you want a soundtrack to the show, click on the right arrow just below…
Then you can advance the slideshow at your own pace by clicking on the right arrow at the bottom. If you want to view the photos in full screen, click on the “menu” button at the bottom left of the screen and it will give you that option. Hope you enjoy.
Having fun with panoramics…
One of the things I played around with on this last trip was taking panoramic photos. Actually, they’re separate photos taken in a row and then stitched together with a software program…mine being Photoshop CS5. If your camera has this feature, you take a picture in the stitch mode, turn a little, take another one…and so on. Then the software program does most of the work stitching them together. As you can probably guess, the more pictures you put together, the skinnier and longer the end product gets. For example, this photo was only two shots. (You can click on it to get the full effect.)
I actually took four pictures of this scene, but for some reason, Photoshop did NOT want to stitch them all together, so I settled for two.
This one is three photos…
This one is two…
This one is four. As you can see, the more photos you take, the less you capture in detail. But it’s still a cool effect.
You can also notice that it distorts things a little and/or puts things on a slight slant.
I kind of like how the zocalo turned out.
So, when you stitch these photos together, this can be the result. It pulls them together in a way that it thinks it should look, with a lot of white space where things don’t line up. Normally, you would have to crop inside the photo to get rid of the white space which would make it really long and skinny.
But Photoshop CS5 has a feature that fills in that white area with what’s called “content aware” in which it takes neighboring pixels and figures out how to match them to complete the photo. Amazing. You usually have to fix a few flaws, but it’s incredible how accurate it is.
Although sometimes it does get confused. I was standing at the end of this pier when I took this series of photos. For some reason, Photoshop decided the pier should end about 20 feet in front of me. Haha! Oh, well…still kind of a neat effect.
Now that I’m back, I can think of all the other panoramics I could have taken…like at Punta Sur or along Garrafon. Well, I guess I’ll just have to go back.
Random Travel Musings 