My brother Phil and I made a last-minute trip south to shoot the Todos Santos Big Wave Event off the coast of Ensenada, México, on Sunday, Feb. 28, 2010. After shooting Mavericks a few weeks earlier, he let me know they called the Todos Santos contest. With little time to prepare, we rented extra photo gear from George’s, charged batteries, and spent the night in Tijuana. We only got a couple of hours sleep before waking up around 4 a.m. to head to Ensenada.

We were to meet at 5:30 a.m. at the boat but arrived in Ensenada 20 minutes behind schedule. We knew to meet at the marina, but didn’t know exactly where. As the confusion began to peak, I resorted to breaking a few traffic laws, including one right in front of a police cruiser. At this moment, I assumed the day would be a total bust. Thankfully, the officer didn’t notice and we made it to the dock. It was a huge relief to find the group and get our bearings on the boat.

It took about an hour and a half to get to Isla Todos Santos, about 12 miles off the coast of Ensenada. The swells were big enough to have everyone excited. The first sign we were arriving was a broken surfboard floating by the boat.

The competition had already begun when we arrived. The water was busy with jet skis and boats, blocking quite a few shots. Some photographers on skis were using weather-sealed digital SLRs, but without water housings. Our captain was pretty conservative and kept us out of optimal shooting position for most of the day. But considering it started around 8 a.m. and ended around 2:30 p.m., there was plenty of time to get a few clear shots throughout the day.

Heat 1 Qualifiers: Greg Long, Carlos Burle, Kohl Christensen

Heat 2 Qualifiers: Gabriel Villarán, Grant “Twiggy” Baker, Mark Healey

This next shot is Phil’s, but I have to include it because it does a better job than mine do of giving the scale of these waves (check out his Todos Santos gallery). Gabriel Villarán rode this monster, considered the biggest wave of the day:

Heat 3 Qualifiers: Mike Parson, Jaimie Sterling, Ken Collins

Heat 4 Qualifiers: Grant Washburn, Shane Dorian, Ramon Navarro

Heat 5, Semi-Final 1 Qualifiers: Grant “Twiggy” Baker, Carlos Burle, Mark Healey

Heat 6, Semi-Final2 Qualifiers: Shane Dorian, Ramon Navarro, Grant Washburn

Heat 7, Final: Mark Healey (1st), Shane Dorian (2nd), Ramon Navarro (3rd), Carlos Burle (4th), Grant “Twiggy” Baker (5th), Grant Washburn (6th)

The waves were amazing all day. The sets were largest at the beginning of the day and seemed to ramp down slowly through the competition. I’d never seen waves this size in person; it’s an amazing thing to witness. The power and force of the water, the color, the sound. It’s breathtaking to see someone take on a giant.

Over the holiday break, we took three of our nephews (ages 13, 13, 16) on a trip to Oaxaca, México. Here, we tried some grasshoppers in the market. They’re cooked with lime, salt, chile and garlic. They taste surprisingly good!

Spanish Transcription:

En México hay muchos tipos de agave, y dependiendo del tipo de agave, se puede producir una bebida diferente. Y para producir tequila, el agave que se debe usar se llama “agave azul.” Es el único agave que se usa para producir el tequila.

Aquí valente es un jimador y esta es una planta de agave, así de ese tamaño es como se planta en el campo. Una vez plantado, hay que esperar aproximadamente de ocho a 10 años para que el agave crezca y llegue a su madurez, así como vemos a todos estos agaves. La madurez del agave se puede apreciar en todo lo que es esto, la penca. Esa penca seca ya está indicando que está madurando, que ya está maduro el agave. Entonces, el jimador es el que se encarga de precisamente de jimar el agave. “Jima” es una palabra Nahuatl que significa “cosechar.” Es la herramienta que se utiliza y se llama coa. Entonces con la coa el jimador, lo que hace es cortar la penca e ir descubriendo el corazón, el corazón que vamos a necesitar para continuar con el proceso.

El primer paso es el cocimiento. Tenemos los hornos, son hornos de piedra. Cada uno tiene una capacidad de 48 toneladas de agave. Entonces, hay que llenar los hornos con agave a mano. En seguida, vamos a cerrar los hornos con esas puertas de madera y hay que cocer este agave a puro vapor. Y lo vamos a cocer por más o menos 26 horas a una temperatura de 90 grados constantes. Después de 26 horas hay que abrir el horno para dejar que el agave ya cocido se enfríe. Vamos a dejar que se enfríe por 24 horas, así que lleva como dos días para cocer el agave.

Vamos a pasar a esta barrica para que prueben el agave cocido. -”Sabe rico? Dulce?” –”Como miel.”

Una vez que ya tenemos este agave cocido allí, y ya se enfrió, por este lado del horno vamos a sacarlo. Hay que sacarlo a mano. Allí podemos observar a los compañeros como van a sacar ese agave ya cocido a mano. Van a poner como pueden observar en esas bandas y van a subir … [no audible] … que empiezan a girar, empiezan a aplastar ese agave y extraerle el jugo. El jugo se va en esa dirección y la fibra, o el gabazo como le llamamos, se va al otro lado. Allí vamos a dejar para su fermentación natural por más o menos tres o cuatro días. Entonces en estos días, los millones y millones de microorganismos del medio ambiente, lo que hacen es tragar dulce y producir alcohol. O sea, no se agrega nada. Es una fermentación cien por ciento natural. Pero para entonces, ya nos convirtió ese dulce a más o menos siete grados de alcohol volumen.

Entonces una vez fermentado el jugo, hay que mandarlo por tubería a la siguiente etapa, a la destilación. Al jugo fermentado también se le puede llamar “mosto muerto.” Este es el jugo que se manda por tubería y vamos a llenar esos alambiques con ese jugo fermentado. Se cierra, y luego hay que ir calentando lentamente ese jugo con vapor, hay que irlo calentando. Cuando ya está muy caliente empieza a ebullir. Y cuando la temperatura del alambique nos marca más o menos 85 o 90 grados constantes, 90 grados, 75 a 90 grados Celcius, es cuando entonces lentamente van a empezar a evaporar los alcoholes que van a ir subiendo por ese tubo ondulado allá llamado “cuello de cisne” y van a ingresar a aquella flauta. Es un condensador de agua fría. Entonces allí el vapor gira, se enfría, y se convierte en liquido y pueden observarlo allí. Después de una primera destilación, podemos obtener un liquido llamado “ordinario.” Este liquido no es tequila porque cuando mucho tiene 25 grados de alcohol y para que sea tequila de menos necesita 35 grados de alcohol. Como no es de 35 grados es un producto ordinario. ¿Que vamos a hacer? Vamos a hacer una segunda destilación. Con este producto de 25 grados vamos a llenar otro alambique para ir con la segunda destilación que es igualita a la primera pero es más lenta. Entonces sí, después de la segunda destilación ya podemos obtener tequila blanco. Podemos obtener tequila blanco Jimador de 35 grados, podemos obtener tequila blanco Jimador de 38 grados, o blanco Herradura de 46 grados.

De ese tequila blanco podemos producir o laborar tequilas reposados y tequilas añejos. Y para ello, necesitamos barricas. Son barricas de roble blanco Americano y se compran siempre nuevas de Kentucky. Tiene cada una de ellas una capacidad de 200 litros y una barrica la podemos usar por más o menos 10 años. Lógicamente la barrica lo que cambia es el color, el olor, y el sabor del tequila blanco. Entre más tiempo se pone más oscuro y el olor va cambiando. Desde tonos herbales, vainilla, canela, el sabor a maderas, a frutas secas como nuez, avellana et cetera. Entre más tiempo más concentración de olores y de sabores. Entonces, si queremos producir tequilas reposados, el tequila blanco se debe dejar en la barrica mínimo dos meses y máximo 11 meses. Ese es un tequila reposado de dos a 11 meses, no más no menos. Si queremos producir añejos, como su palabra lo indica “añejo” significa “año.” Entonces el tequila blanco debe permanecer en la barrica de un año a tres años. Es un añejo. Pues en Marzo de este año [2006] se declara una nueva categoría de tequila y se llama “extra añejos.” Bien, un extra añejo permanece más de tres años en barrica. Pero aquí, desde hace poquito algo así entre 10 años, se produce el único extra añejo en México y se llama Selección Suprema de Casa Herradura. Tiene más de cuatro años en barricas.

Les damos la bienvenida al pasado. Estamos en la fábrica antigua, ya es un museo. El tequila Herradura se empezó a producir aquí por primera vez en 1870. Ya cocido ya frío, se sacaba el agave a mano y se cargaba aquí. Es el area de molienda, o sea el agave se ponía en el piso alrededor con los caballos que jalaban el tronco por fuera. Entonces esta piedrita pesa dos toneladas. Se llama “tahona.” La piedra empezaba a girar e iba aplastando el agave para ir extrayendo el jugo. Este lugar lleno de hoyos en el piso era el area de fermentación. Pero aquí, la temperatura es muy baja muy fría, aquí en vez de dejarlo tres cuatro días, lo dejaban más o menos de 12 a 15 días.

Aquí podemos observar el area de destilación. Nada más que hay alambiques de cobre y hay condensadores de piedra. Igual se traía el jugo para aca a mano, por aquí llenaban el alambique con jugo a mano, lo cerraban y por debajo le ponían leña para calentar ese jugo. Igual, ya muy caliente empezaba a ebullir ese jugo y luego empezaban a evaporar los alcoholes vienen por ese tubo, ingresando a esa piedra que era el condensador. Y ese se llama “serpentín.” Iba adentro de la piedra, conectado al tubo, y rodeado de agua fría. Allí giraba, atravez del serpentín el vapor se enfriaba, se convertió en liquido. Primera destilación, se acuerdan? Producto ordinario. Con ese liquido, llenaban el otro alambique para ir con su segunda destilación igual. Pero aquí, después de la segunda destilación, había un señor al que le llamaban “guardavinos.” Ese señor siempre traía un cuernito de vaca en su mano. Entonces, se la pasaba cachando producto o el tequila en la segunda destilación, se la pasaba echandose sus traguitos. Por eso se llamaba guardavinos porque lo guardaba en la panza, no? Poco a poco. Después ya de muchas probaditas, dice “Sabes que, este tequila ya está bueno y si no está yo ya estoy.” Y se ponía a llenar las botellas a mano. Pues, ese señor era como quien dice en el laboratorio, con su experiencia y su paladar sabía cuando el tequila blanco Herradura ya estaba bueno. Y llenaban las botellas a mano. Entonces, como pudimos observar, el proceso fuera de aquí es lo mismo. Lo que cambia es la experiencia, la fuerza y los materiales. Aquí se producía puro tequila blanco, puro blanco Herradura. Y esta fábrica la dejaron de usar más o menos en 1970. Lo cual quiere decir que trabajaron 100 años produciendo este tequila Herradura.

English Translation:

In Mexico there are a lot of kinds of agave, and depending on the type of agave you can make different drinks. And to make tequila, the agave that is used is called “blue agave.” It’s the only kind of agave you can use to make tequila.

Here we have a “jimador” and this is an agave plant, this is the size that’s planted in the field. Once planted you have to wait approximately eight to 10 years for the agave to grow to maturity, like all these agaves. The ripeness of the agave is determined by these, the stalks. This dry stalk is showing it’s ready, that the agave is ripe. So, the “jimador” is the one to “jimar” the agave. “Jima” is a Nahuatl word that means to harvest. This is the tool he uses called a “coa.” So with the “coa” the “jimador” cuts the stalks to uncover the heart, the heart that we need to continue with the process.

The first step is cooking. We have the ovens, they’re stone ovens. Each one holds a capacity of 48 tons of agave. So, the ovens are filled with agave by hand. Next, we close the ovens with those wooden gates and steam the agave. And we cook it for about 26 hours at a constant 90 degrees. After the 26 hours, the ovens are opened to let the cooked agave cool. We let it cool for 24 hours so the process takes about two days to cook the agave.

We’re going to go to this barrel and taste the cooked agave. -”Is it good? Sweet?” –”Like honey.”

Once we have the cooked agave there, cooled, on this side of the oven we take it out. It’s taken out by hand. There we can observe how the men take it out by hand. They put it as you can see on these belts and it is carried … [inaudible] … that begins to spin, starts to smash the agave and squeeze the juice. The juice goes over here and the fiber or “gabazo” as we call it goes in the other direction. Here we’re going to let it ferment naturally for more or less three to four days. During this time, millions and millions of microorganisms from the environment, what they do is eat the sugar and produce alcohol. That is, nothing is added. The fermentation is 100 percent natural. But after that, it’s converted the sugar to more or less seven percent alcohol by volume.

Once the juice is fermented, it’s sent by tubes to the next stop, distillation. The fermented juice is also called “mosto muerto.” This is the juice that’s sent through the pipes and we fill those stills with the fermented juice. It’s closed and then it gets heated slowly to steam. So we’re heating it. When it’s really hot it starts to boil. And when the temperature of the still shows more or less 85 to 90 degrees constantly, 90 degrees, 75 to 90 degrees Celcius, that’s when the alcohol is slowly evaporated and goes up through the curved tube there, called a “swan neck,” and it comes into that pipe. This is a cold water condenser. There the water spins, cools and converts to liquid and you can see it there. After the first distillation, we get a liquid called “ordinary.” This liquid isn’t tequila because it has 25 percent alcohol and to be tequila it needs at least 35 percent. As it isn’t 35 percent it’s an ordinary product. What are we going to do? We do another distillation. With this 25 percent product we fill another still to go through the second distillation that’s exactly the same as the first but slower. So yeah, after the second distillation we now have tequila blanco. We produce tequila Jimador blanco at 35 percent, tequila Jimador blanco at 38 percent, or tequila Herradura blanco at 46 percent.

From this tequila blanco we can produce or make tequilas “reposados” and tequilas “añejos.” For that we need barrels. These are barrels of American white oak and are always bought new from Kentucky. Each one has a capacity of 200 liters and we can use a barrel for around 10 years. Logically the barrel changes the color, the smell and the taste of the tequila blanco. The more time it’s inside, the darker the color and the smell changes. From herbal tones, vanilla, cinnamon, the flavor of woods, nuts like walnut, hazelnut, et cetera. The more time, the more concentrated the smell and taste. So, if we want to make tequila “reposado,” the tequila blanco is left in the barrel a minimum of two months, maximum 11 months. That’s a tequila reposado, between two and 11 months, no more, no less. If we want to make añejo, like the word indicates “añejo” means “año” [year]. So the tequila blanco stays in the barrel between one and three years. That’s añejo. Well, in March of this year (2006) a new category of tequila was declared and it’s called “extra añejo.” Well, an extra añejo stays more than three years in the barrel. But here, for a little less than 10 years, we’ve produced the only extra añejo in México and it’s called Selección Supreme de Casa Herradura. It stays more than four years in the barrel.

Welcome to the past. We’re in the old factory, now a museum. Tequila Herradura was first produced here in 1870. Once cooked and cooled, they took the agave out by hand and placed it here. This is the milling area, meaning the agave was put on the floor with horses around pulling the log by force. This stone weighs two tons. It’s called “tahona.” The stone rolled and smashed the agave to squeeeze the juice. This place full of holes in the ground is the fermentation area. But here, the temperature is really low and cold. Here, instead of leaving it three or four days they left it around 12 to 15 days.

Here we can observe the distillation area. Except there are stills of copper and condensors of stone. The same way they brought the juice by hand, here they filled the still with juice by hand, closed it and put firewood beneath to heat the juice. The same way, once heated it started to boil the juice and then started evaporating the alcohol through these tubes, coming into this stone which was the condensor. This is called “serpentín” [coil]. It went inside the stone, connected to the tube, and surrounded by cold water. The vapor spun through the coil, cooled and converted into liquid. First distillation, remember? “Ordinary” product. With this liquid, they filled another still to go through the second distillation. But here, after the second distillation, there was a man that was called “guardavinos” [wine keeper]. This guy always had a bull horn in his hand. He would take the tequila in the second distillation, he’d have his shots. That’s why they called him “guardavinos” [wine keeper] because he kept it in his stomach, right? Little by little. After a lot of sips, he’d say “You know, this tequila is done and if it isn’t then I’m drunk.” And they filled the bottles by hand. So this guy was like a walking lab, with his experience and palate, he knew when tequila Herradura blanco was ready. And they filled the bottles by hand. So, as we can see, the process outside is the same. What’s changed is the experience, the force and materials. Pure tequila blanco, pure Herradura blanco was produced here. And they stopped using this factory in about 1970, which means they made tequila Herradura for 100 years.

Heading north through Tijuana on the Via Rápida, getting gas for $3/gallon, crossing the border, driving on the I-805 in San Diego.

For a few days in November of 2006, we visited Guanajuato. In this video, Rosario reminisces about her first childhood trip to the state’s capital city.

Videos

• San Diego Airport Before Departure: Rosario and I being silly as we wait to board our first red-eye flight to New York.
• Central Park, World Trade Center: We had about 12 hours in NY before taking another red-eye flight to Madrid.
• Madrid: Graciela takes us to Puerta del Sol and Puerta de Alcalá, with a glimpse of the architecture of the Madrid Barajas Airport.
• Elche, Valencia, Alicante: Gema takes us through a few more Spanish cities, seeing la Dama de Elche, a museum, cathedral, castle, and televised World Cup game.
• Barcelona: Marta gives us a taste of the city’s culture.
• Mercat de la Boqueria: The huge market near la rambla in Barcelona.
• Manamana: Marta and Rosario’s version of the Muppets’ song, with some amazing laughter at the end.
• Leonardo DiCaprio at Parc Güell: Only as he was leaving did Marta realize it was him. We went back and found him in a bunch of the shots.
• Dinner with Francisco & José: Conversation with some new friends.
• Gaudí’s Sagrada Familia: Marta walks us through the famous cathedral.
• World Cup Game: Mexico vs. Angola in Hannover, all dressed up.
• Berlin Wall: Wandering around the city on bike, another World Cup plaza.
• Venice: Apparently not as romantic as expected.
• Florence: Roaming the city with a pit stop in Sienna, World Cup on giant screen.
• Rome: Touring the Colosseum, Pantheon, Vatican and catacombs. |

Originial blog posts from ’06

• World Trade Center almost 5 years after the fall
• A few hours in Madrid
• Cannons, tigernuts and stone women, oh my!
• Ah, Barcelona…
• Berlin during the World Cup
• The journey comes to a close in Italy

Photos from ’06

• Spain & Catalunya
• Germany
• Italy

For anyone who might visit, we stayed at a hoste/hotel called Maya Bell. It’s actually inside the National Park of Palenque. We had a great time exploring and soaking in the ancient city.

Some of my best photos from the trip were shot here in Palenque.

Video recorded September 20, 2007

While shooting in the town square, a tour guide approached and told me I should put the camera away. He said the police would take my camera and throw me in jail. At first, I thought he was just trying to get me to pay to join his tour.

The town enjoys unique autonomous status within Mexico. No outside police or military are allowed in the village. Chamulas have their own police force. – Wikipedia

A few minutes later, I was eating a bowl of chicken soup at a streetside restaurant. The texture of the chicken was unlike any I'd ever eaten. It was more chewy, almost spongy. After a few bites, I realized this chicken leg was previously attached to one of the many running freely nearby. It wasn't the couped-up, hormone-filled, force-fed flavor I was used to. The visceral experience gave me a sudden respect for my surroundings and I didnt take the camera out of the bag again.

View more photos of San Juan Chamula.

Video recorded September 19, 2007

Chiapas is beautiful. We visited Sumidero Canyon, las Cascadas el Chiflón, las Lagunas de Montebello, and more.

(on technical note, I've started using iMovie'08 instead of Final Cut Pro for these videos. I still haven't finished editing our summer vacation from 2006 in FCP. I'm hoping the simplicity of iMovie (limited options) continues to speed up the process and get through all this tape…)

Video recorded September 16, 2007