The first couple of days of this adventure were spent in the capitol city of Bucharest. I arrived on Thursday evening before the Orthodox Easter weekend. Maddy has brought some traditional Romanian treats for the Easter season so I got to get in the spirit of things. Unfortunately towards the end of my flight I started to get a bit of a queasy stomach (didn’t wait till the end of the trip to hit me this time), so it took me a few days to robustly get into adventurous eating. In addition to being right across from the Dâmbovița River and Old City, we were also right next to a small church, and Easter weekend provided lots of bell ringing.
Friday was spent walking around the old city, basically sightseeing, seeing many old historic looking buildings and interesting walkways. I also finally got to visit an umbrella covered street, the type of which I’ve seen in a few pictures, but never actually discovered one before (like in Turkey). We stopped there and had some refreshment. We passed by banks, museums, universities, theaters, and many restaurants. We had lunch at a well known restaurant, Hanu’ lui Manuc, in the oldest operating hotel building in Bucharest which dates to the early 19th century. Maddy ensured that I had some traditional Romanian food including Sărmăluțe and mămăliguță. Definitely a meat heavy diet. I also discovered very delicious Romanian soups that they put sour cream into. I had several on my travels around the country. After all our our sightseeing, we took a little break to rest up at the apartment.
In the evening we went to a nearby restaurant, Linea / Closer to the Moon, which is known for having tables on the roof, each covered in their own bubble to protect the diners from the elements. Unfortunately that part was closed for renovation, but it was a nice dinner anyway. After dinner one of Maddy’s friends came by to visit. Though it didn’t seem like an unreasonable amount of walking, we went over 6 miles and I got more than 13k steps. That and the fact that the clock was flipped for me made me ready for some sleep.
Saturday morning we did some additional sightseeing in Bucharest. We went to the Dimitrie Gusti national village museum (Muzeul National al Satului “Dimitrie Gusti”) which is a large park area that has examples of houses in styles from the various regions of Romania and from various periods in history over the last four centuries. It was really quite interesting to see the different styles of houses and different methods of construction. After walking around the museum park for a couple of hours, we grabbed some lunch at a not too traditional place, the Hard Rock Cafe — Bucharest, where Maddy had “the best hamburger she ever ate.” After lunch we headed off for our next destination, the seaside town of Constanța.
Rather than zoom right out of town after the tour, I decided to stay around for a couple of days in Mérida, just to unwind and see a little of the local culture. I had chosen an Airbnb that looked quite nice and was supposedly fairly close to some of the points of interest. I ended up doing more chilling that sightseeing, but I did do a little. I was the last person dropped off after the tour, and Dimitriy ended up dropping me off after 11 pm after our dinner. It was pretty dark, and I had been given the lockbox codes to let myself in. The street and building didn’t look like much from the outside, but inside was a beautiful courtyard with a fountain and lush vegetation. I didn’t see too much the first night, but it was a beautiful place to stay. My room had very high ceilings, and it was quite interesting in that the tall doors that opened into the courtyard could be partially opened at the top to let air in through barred openings. It looked like an ancient colonial mansion. It also had a pool and a giant kitchen for those so inclined. 
The last day of the tour was originally planned as an abbreviated day, with one morning shoot ending with a farewell lunch. However, because of our scheduling hiccough at the hacienda, and the interjection of the extra guerrilla shoot, our last day ended up being a fairly long one. We began the day with the originally planned shoot at a Mayan ruins at 
We had a nice lunch in town, then we went downtown at went through a museum of local Mayan folk art. We also walked through the prominent convent of San Antonio de Padua. It is a large dominant structure in the middle of town that looks a bit like a fortress castle. While we were doing this, the models took the opportunity to go to a day spa for a little rejuvenation. After we all reassembled it was nearing sunset, and we decided to go down to the square in Izamal where UT Adventure had made a splash a few years ago with a model shoot, and have a golden hour guerrilla shoot. This time all the models were dressed, so it was more like a fashion shoot. All the locals found it quite interesting and were checking us out pretty good. Some were probably remembering back to the nude shoot a few years ago. After sunset we headed back to our home base, and we were hoping to possibly return to the nice hacienda on the last day.
Flamingos and Shaman. Our forth day was mid-tour and it was supposed to be a gap-day where he had a lighter schedule and could catch a little rest (but as usual, that has to be taken with a grain of salt). As such, we had only one scheduled shoot. Originally it was another hacienda, but as the flamingos were present at a nature reserve, they opted to go there. It was actually a fun outing where we went to the town of Ria Lagartos, and caught some boats that took us out into the reserve, that had a little Everglades feel. 
That evening Dasha had arranged for an optional event. She had arranged with a Mayan shaman to perform a traditional fire ceremony that allegedly dates back many generations. The shamanic mysticism is aligned with her new age spirituality. I decided to attend just to take in the unique cultural event. It was interesting as we placed some stuff in the fire that smoked, got a maraca, picked a stone. It was all supposed to be opening our wishes and actualizing our dreams.
If day 2 was hacienda day, then day 3 was water day. Our first shooting location of the day was in a cenote. I’ve seen pictures of them for years, but never visited one in person before. We went to Cenote Chelentun in the little town of Cuzama. It was a particularly special location as the cenote was about a mile from where we parked, and we were transported to the cenote on horse drawn rail cars. These small horses trotted along the rail line with amazing dexterity. The cenote itself was very beautiful with amazing colors in the blue green water that took on different character as the light from above changed position. The water was accessed down a somewhat sketchy steep stone staircase that went down 30 or 40 feet. The working space was fairly confined, so the 11 of us were kind of working on top of each other, but I was still able to get some interesting and beautiful shots. After two or three hours of shooting, we got some lunch and returned to our hacienda home for a little rest.
The second day of the tour was a full day of haciendas. The first one was discovered by Dasha during a trip where they were scoping out cenotes as she was trying to answer nature’s call. It was a beautiful property that was in the process of being restored. It was pretty much open to the elements, but had a beautiful layout and various interesting rooms. The laborers seemed to find plenty of excuses to be around the area where we were shooting the models.
The second shoot was in a fairly remote area down a long bumpy dirt road. The owner of Hacienda Bolontunil is trying to 
For the second time this month, I set off on another big photography related travel adventure. This was my first trip out of the country in almost 4 years, and the first time I’ve been to Mexico in more than 20 years. It was my first time traveling to the state of Yucatán, Mexico, and I was able to get a taste of the true Mexico away from the major tourist locations. I had a long travel day, leaving home at about 5 am, and arriving in Mérida after 7 pm. I hadn’t realized it, but there were three other guys on our tour that came in on the same flight I did. It took a day to get down there, and I came in a day early (as did everybody else) so I could recuperate before the tour kicked off.
I joined up with the