A vacation of vistas

Moraine Lake near Lake Louise Alberta

This post is very late but better late than never I guess. Last summer I took a road trip from Saskatoon to Victoria with stops along the way and visiting friends and family, nearly 4000km (~2500mi) round trip. I managed to get some photos that I really liked, some in infrared using my converted 10D and some using my 5D MK II.

My first stop between here and Victoria was in Banff, actually Two Jack Lake to be more precise which is across the highway from Banff. I met up with a few friends there and camped for a few days with them. Below is a photo that is pretty much from the edge of my campsite, despite being only 3 degrees Celsius the one night it was great waking up to this incredible view.

Two Jack Lake, Alberta

Since we were right across the highway from Banff we did a few day trips into town, luckily my friends were very tolerant of my photo taking addiction and were ok waiting around here and there while I happily snapped away.

We did another day trip to Lake Louise and Moraine Lake the latter being the lake that used to grace the back of the Canadian $20 bill.





Almost all of the photos I took on my trip are actually stitched composites of multiple photos, with the 5D this lead to some incredibly large photos, in the neighborhood of 150 Mega Pixels. The shot below shows a 100% crop of the water and you can actually make out the people in the canoe!

I didn't wind up taking many more photos as I moved on to Vernon BC and finally Victoria, spent more time visiting and really after the stunning scenery around Banff most of the other locations paled in comparison. I did stop in Horseshoe Canyon near Drumheller on my way back.

That's it for this post, hopefully more to follow in the coming weeks as I try to catch up.

Capturing Cuba

Trinidad de Cuba (To see the full Cuba set click here)

Another year begins and another escape from the frigid temperatures of the Canadian prairies. I must admit however our winter here in Saskatchewan has been alarmingly warm. Much to the chagrin of those I left behind my 1 week trip did allow me to dodge the brief cold snap of -40° weather.

From Jan 12th-19th I made my hotel room at the Barcelo Solymar resort in Varadero my base of operations. Traveling with one of my best friends, who is also my roommate, we planned a nice mix of excursions and relaxation (read: partying) during our 1 week vacation.

The day after our arrival we met with our Sunwing rep and booked our tours. We opted for a 1 day Havana excursion and then a 2 day overnight trip through 4 provinces up to the mountains (aka Trinidad + Rambo tour). Prices seemed fair at around $60 and $120 respectively.

We still had the remainder of the day to explore Varadero a little so we paid 5CUC for an all day bus pass on the double-decker bus that cruises up and down the strip. I was leery of taking my 5DMKII along to Cuba so I opted to bring my 2Ti instead which had served me very well in Halifax, Mexico, and Cypress Hills. I also brought along my trusty Canon SD780IS point & shoot and my tiny Golden Half, a diminutive half frame camera put out by Superheadz in Japan.

Like most of the tourists in Varadero we wound up at the various fleamarkets that dot the main drag. While the various tables held treasures for some it was the side streets and photo opportunities that lured me in.

Street scene in Varadero, Cuba

Shot from my Golden Half on the main drag in Varadero, Cuba

The next day after an unintentionally late night (hey the drinks are free) we boarded the tour bus for Havana. Just getting to see some of the countryside instead of the very touristy Varadero was nice.

Scene beside a rest stop on the way to Havana

Throughout Cuba there are people who make their living just posing for tourist photos, the gentleman in the shot below just hung out at this one rest stop where people on their way to Havana would stop.

A "tourist model" poses for a shot at a reststop on the way to Havana

Havana itself was an impressive sight, you could just imagine how crazy it must have been in the 30's with the mobsters flocking there and setting up casinos and nightclubs. Everywhere you turned there were amazing sights to be seen.

Amazing architecture is everywhere in Havana

Having never been to Havana before, or Cuba for that matter, we wound up sticking with the tour group the whole time. This limited the shots I was able to get but I still managed to get some good captures. Street photography is a genre I haven't dabbled in too much but I was very happy with some of the shots I was able to get. The photo one below was actually shot out of our bus and was one of my favourite from Havana.

A Habanero looks down the busy street from his window.

The Havana tour ended with a stop at their Capitol building which looks very similar to another landmark in another country.

Capitol Building in Havana, Cuba

Next we had a few days at our resort, initially we were a little worried because we seemed to only be running into Russian or French speaking people. I like meeting new people but if they don't speak any English its hard to break the ice. Eventually though we found there were lots of other English speaking Canadians and after a few Cuba Libres everyone was a friend. We also met lots of cool people from around the world, Sweden, Russia, Albania, Belgium and I even met a female Italian rally driver!

These group shots are always a big hit, especially with drunk people!

On yet another sleep deprived morning we boarded a bus for our 2 day excursion. Traveling south from Varadero we'd pass through the city of Cardenas, then on to the Che Guevara Museum in Santa Clara. Lunch would be in the city of Sancti Spiritus, followed by a stop in Trinidad de Cuba before heading up to our hotel in the mountains of Topes de Collantes.

A statue of Che at the Che Guevara memorial in Santa Clara

Our tour guide explains the ration system at a distribution center in Sancti Spiritus

My favourite city from the trip though was Trinidad de Cuba, this was less touristy than some of the other places we'd been. The town had more of a sleepy laid back vibe and the people were very friendly.

A street scene in Trinidad de Cuba

A pretty girl smiles for the camera from inside a building in Trinidad de Cuba

Two girls hang out in front of their shop in Trinidad de Cuba beckoning people to come in look at their merchandise

After the last rays of daylight had faded we boarded our bus and made our way up the mountain to our hotel. After a nice dinner I had what proved to be my only hot shower during my entire Cuba trip. Feeling human again I went to bed knowing we'd have a full day the next day. Eight hours later I fueled up on a light breakfast and a few cups of coffee before hopping aboard an old Russian army truck which was going to carry us further up the mountain. From there a new tour guide was to take us on a 3km hike down the mountain where we'd see various flora and fauna and see a nice waterfall.

Lush vegetation covers the mountains in Topes de Collantes

My buddy serves as a human tripod to let me take a slow shutter snap of this waterfall

A bit further down the trail we stop and those who wanted to were free to swim in this mountain pool.

At the end of the trail we broke for lunch, the restaurant was open air and had some very nice flowers and trees around it. The flower in the shot below reminded me of those cheap fiber-optic wand thingamajigs you used to be able to buy at the circus.

A neat flower from outside the mountain restaurant

After lunch we boarded the Russian army trucks again and headed back to our regular tour bus. From here we'd make our way down the mountain then west to our last stop of Cienfuegos, a port city on the Caribbean side of Cuba.

The Russian army trucks that transported us up and down the mountain

An anorexic cow grazes on the side of the road on our way to Cienfuegos


A windsurfer takes a ride off the shore of Cienfuegos

School must have just let out in Cienfuegos while we were there because the streets were full of students.

Just before boarding the bus to head back to Varadero one of the many street artists I'd encountered during my stay in Cuba had managed to pen my image. I think the hat and goatee are a magnet for caricature artists :) I actually really liked this one but had just spent my last $1.50 on a container of ice cream to help soothe my now burning throat (I had a nasty cold at this point). My buddy, seeing my predicament, quickly hopped off the bus to pay the gentleman and snag what I thought was one of the best caricatures of me I'd seen during the whole trip.

From here we left on the 4 hour bus ride back to Varadero for our last night in Cuba. Sick with a cold and thoroughly exhausted I felt as though I'd done my best to see a fair chunk of Cuba over my stay and capture the experience as best I could.

Majestic Maya - Destination Cancun

El Castillo at Chichen Itza. See all photos here

I guess I'm a little quite tardy in writing this post but better late than never. A few months back my and my girlfriend decided to blow this sub-zero Popsicle stand and fly south for some warmer climates.

We considered a few different destinations, Jamaica? Too expensive right now, Dominican? Both had been there already. Cuba? Maybe. Mexico? Possibly but only if we go to the Mayan Riviera side so we can see some cool sights. In the end we chose Cancun, Mexico, based on prices and attractions. We booked our trip for Jan 30 to Feb 6th and after many hours on Tripadvisor decided to go with Sea Adventure Resort & Waterpark, an older hacienda style resort a little off the beaten path and away from all the tourists.

Our flight was good with no delays etc though our in flight entertainment system was down (Westjet I swear this happens 75% of the time, fix it already) but thanks to ipods, kindles, and good old fashioned paper books we were kept entertained.

Our resort in a nutshell was great, although upon arriving we were a little concerned. A couple from either US or Canada were in the middle of a fight with the hotel staff when we walked in the front doors. The bellboy was holding the door closed and they were shouting "you can't keep us prisoner here!!" and trying to open the door. It goes without saying that we were pretty wide eyed when we approached the front desk. It turned out the people had refused to pay $20 because one of their kids had spilled something on the bed and stained the sheets. Anyway, seeing how bewildered we were they immediately upgraded our room to an oceanview room with a jacuzzi on the balcony. Sweet.

View from our balcony

That was really the only bad experience we had at the resort. The staff were very friendly and eager to please, this was part of why we booked there, people on Tripadvisor couldn't say enough good things about the service.

The resort was located in Puerto Juarez in north Cancun, well away from the tourist zone. In fact it seemed we were pretty much on the outskirts of town. Pros were that we were close to the ferry to La Isla Mujeres and we had Mayan Ruins just up the road from us, cons were that cab rides into downtown were a little more money but not that bad.

Our first night we didn't do too much, just ate, drank, and got the lay of the land. The next day we paid for some tours and formulated a rough plan for our week.

Monday - Take the 2min shuttle up the road to El Meco Ruins ($3 fee at the gates)
Tuesday - Chichen Itza Tour ($72 each, 12 hour excursion)
Wednesday - Take it easy, maybe go downtown to the market
Thursday - Rio Secreto Cave Tour ($89 each, ~8hr excursion)
Friday - La Isla Mujeres
Saturday - Last full day, relax and enjoy it.

For the most part we were able to stick with our plan with the exception of La Isla Mujeres which got moved to Saturday.

El Meco

Pano taken at El Meco ruins just a 10 min walk from our resort

This was such a treat. We had heard about it on trip advisor when researching our resort. Reviews had mentioned that this ruin site was almost always free of other visitors and this turned out to be true, we were the only visitors there for half an hour and then one guy from our resort wandered in as well. If you're in Cancun I highly recommend heading out to these ruins, they may not be as grandiose as Chichen Itza but the peaceful stillness from the lack of people gives it a more surreal feeling. Both me and my girlfriend counted it as one of the highlights of our trip.

The lizards have taken over the ruins at El Meco

Chichen Itza

Being that our hotel was a little out of the way we were picked up by a shuttle (30 min late) and taken downtown to where the mini tour bus was departing. The drive was around 2.5hrs with a stop near Chichen Itza at a Cenote. There you could swim if you wanted then a stop for an included lunch. The lunch was actually pretty good and included a bit more authentic local fare.

After lunch we made our way to the historical site where we stayed for 2 and half hours. Our guide said we could follow him or break off from the group, however he very strongly suggested we stay with the group because it was easy to get lost and not find the proper exit. Don't believe they hype! We stayed with the group and regretted it afterwards, our guide took us through the Great Ballcourt and then stopped under the shade of some trees and talked for over an hour. Then we were given a little less than an hour to wander around the whole site on our own. In the end we missed some cool portions like the Priests Temple and the Observatory. My recommendation is watch "Cracking The Mayan Code" (its also on Netflix) before you go and read up about Chichen Itza on wikipedia before you go and skip the guide.

The site was pretty cool, the hoards of tourists kinda took away from the surreal landscape though. It wasn't until I had gotten home, processed and de-touristed the photos, that I could look back and appreciate what I had seen. It seems to be the same no matter where I go, I felt the same when I was on the Great Wall of China. I heard some people complaining that you they no longer let you climb up on the structures, I for one was glad since it kept people out of my shots ;)

Temple of The Warriors at Chichen Itza

One last note on Chichen Itza regarding souvenirs, there are some items we saw there and passed over because we thought we'd find them again later for a cheaper price. While this was true of some items there were others that we never saw again, for example there was a woven blanket with a very cool Mayan/Aztec looking pattern that I regret not picking up. I also bought an ash tray and a stone chess board while we were on our way out, I got both together for $20 and later on I saw the same chessboards for $80. I just said to the guy I've got a bus to catch, take it or leave it and he took the cash. When I told one of the vendors I bought the same chess board for around $15 he got a little angry and said that was not possible ;)

Rio Secreto Caves

Photo from cd purchased after the tour

Now this was something I was very excited about before the trip. I came across it while reading up on excursions in and around Cancun and was surprised when I had discovered it because I had seen portions of it featured in the BBC/Discover series Planet Earth. I had no idea that this was in Mexico so as soon as I found out I told my girlfriend this was something we had to do.

The Yucatan penninsula is primarly limestone, because of this there are no natural rivers, instead they are all underground. Normally these caves are filled with water and require scuba gear to explore them, underwater cave exploration is one of the most dangerous activities in the world. Rio Secreto on the other hand is one of the few underground rivers that you can actually walk/wade through without ever having to put your head under the water.

The tour cost us around $99 USD and included pickup/dropoff from our resort as well as lunch at the caves. Like the Chichen Itza excursion our shuttle to pick us up at our resort was late, this time though it was running really late. Eventually after talking to a rep from Best Day Travel we found out that our shuttle had gotten a flat tire, the rep then put us into a cab on their dime and sent us downtown to meet up with the bus. We ended up being the last people to get on the bus and I'm sure people were thinking it was our fault we were late and held them up. Oh well I'll never see them again anyway ;)

Despite getting off to a rough start the rest of the excursion was great. Just a heads up though the showers they make you use before getting into your wetsuit are insanely cold since they are using water from the underground river. Its funny when you get back and you see another group who are just about to go through the same experience ;)

Our tour guide was great and our group was fairly small, I believe they always try to keep the size below 10 people. Walking is a little tricky since the bottom of the cave isn't always flat, just go slow and you'll be fine. Throughout the tour there is a guy that shadows your group and snaps photos here and there. At preset locations they have flashes setup (with bags over them to keep them dry) and they'll get you to pose for a shot like the one below.

A posed shot while on the tour, note the flashlights in the pools providing extra light ;)

At the end of the tour while you're busy trying to get your wet-suit off they run ahead and dump their memory cards. You then get a shot of an anise and honey flavoured Mayan liqueur and they try to sell you the photos they took of you. Its a little steep at $60 USD for a disc but I'd rather pay for these shots then some lame one on a beach with a parrot on your shoulder. The disc you get also includes some nice stock shots from the caves as well, unfortunately the stock shots are lower res (2-3Mega Pixel). One thing to note is that your disc will contain two folders, "Fotos" and "Fotos para impresion", the first contains photos that are good for web use and emailing, the second contains larger files (10 Mega Pixels) which are for printing. At first I didn't see the folder with the full sized files and felt a little cheated.

La Isla Mujeres (The Island of Women)

The large ferries that take people back and forth to the island, $7 USD return

On our second last day we took a ferry across to the Island of Women. There is plenty of stuff to do on the island like diving and a whole host of water sports or you can rent a golf cart and cruise around the island. We however just played it low key and just walked up and down the strip on foot. At one point we wandered off the main strip a little too far and it was looking a little seedier, I don't think we were ever in any danger since the whole island makes its living on tourism.

Some graffiti we came across when we wandered off the beaten path on La Isla Mujeres

While we were off the beaten path we came across a neat little cemetery that had this creepy black cat apparently standing guard at the gates.




We made it back to the main strip and found a little ice cream/gelato shop which was a nice place to sit and cool off a little. All in all the island was decent, others we talked to that had done some of the excursions had quite a good time so I'd say its worth checking out.

We could see our resort from the ferry!

In the end it was quite a nice little winter get away, we had a nice mix of adventure and relaxation and didn't break the bank in the process. What more can you ask for right?


Here's a little video I put together from a collection of clips I had shot with my little ipod touch.

Mexico Randomness from James Hildebrandt on Vimeo.

While staying at the resort you get 2 vouchers per week to eat at their fancier a la carte restaurant "Oysters". We found the food there to be quite good and while we thought the buffet was decent this was definitely a nice change. Here's a clip of our waiter preparing our Mayan Coffee:

Mayan Coffee at Sea Adventure Resort Cancun from James Hildebrandt on Vimeo.

If you want to see all of the photos from the trip you can check them out at my flickr gallery here or if you really like the shots you can purchase a little book of them here.

Travel Photography - Destination Halifax NS

Peggy's Cove just outside Halifax NS, Canada

The narcissistic seagull of Peggy's Cove

**Note all photos from this trip can be seen here in my flickr gallery and they are geotagged if you want to know the photo's location***

As I write this my summer holidays come to an end and I'm back to work soon but I had a refreshing break and got to see some more of the beauty that our country has to offer.

My original summer holiday plan was supposed to take me to Serbia where a friend's father still has a house. We were going to check out the Adriatic coast and use their house in Serbia as somewhat of a basecamp. Unfortunately plans fell through this year but where one door closes another opens, a friend moved out to Halifax last year for school and was gracious enough to let me come out and stay with her for a week. I'd always wanted to see the east coast, I often see those tourism commercials and am always surprised by the how much Canada has to offer.

From the photographer friendly Peggy's Cove (shown at the top) to the period correct Alexander Keith's Brewery on the waterfront Halifax proved to be a fantastic place to visit.

(Alexander Keith's Brewery)

I've done a modest amount of travelling so far in my time and often I think "nice place to visit but I wouldn't want to live here", Halifax did not receive the same internal reflection. Quite the opposite rather, I could definitely handle living in this amazing little city (not sure how the winters are though lol). The buildings in downtown Halifax are just awesome, they are all older style buildings with extravagant little embellishments as you can see below.

Facade on a building located across the street from St Mary's basilica


A random street shot just to show a typical downtown view

I definitely left of piece of myself behind in that port city, so many amazing places to visit that are within walking distance of the downtown. For example Point Pleasant park on the southern tip of Halifax is this dense forrested area that had me wondering if I was in northern Saskatchewan until the view opened up to reveal the water.

A glimpse of the harbour is revealed while walking to the shore at Point Pleasant.

This is my friend's "Secret Spot" at Point Pleasant that she was nice enough to share with me ;)

If you find Point Pleasant to be a little too rugged for your liking the Halifax Public Gardens may prove to be your cup of tea. Located between Spring Garden Road and Sackville St this huge Victorian style gardens is a very sculpted and well groomed botanical oasis just on the edge of the downtown district. Lots of sculptures and a variety of floral gardens greet you as you stroll along the walking paths.

Not sure who this is represented in this sculpture but it looked quite nice ;)

The reflections in the pond drew the attention of my camera quite quickly


Plenty of flora around for botany lovers

Among other places to see while visiting Halifax is St. Mary's basillica with its medieval looking architecture and exquisite stained glass windows and towering vaulted ceilings.

St. Mary's Basilica marvels passers by on Spring Garden Road

Amazing stained glass and huge arched ceiling definitely gives this place a surreal feeling.

The harbour, as would be expected, is quite a busy place and is loaded with shops and tourists. Land and boat tours are constantly departing and returning, museums, pubs, restaurants, and gifts shops litter the waterfront.



One place you should stop and see is Nova Scotian Crystal where you can watch the workers as they bend, shape, and blow the glass into stunning works of functional art.

A worker puts the finishing touches on a crystal glass.

Adjacent to the workshop is the storefront and gallery, nice pieces but unfortunately out of my budget

In the end there were a few places that I didn't have time to visit but the places that I did see were great. I met some really nice people, ate some fantastic food, and got to spend some time catching up with a good friend what more could you ask for ;)

Update: Photos from my Halifax trip are now available for purchase in book form!

A Glimpse Of Halifax by James Hildebrandt | Make Your Own Book