The beautiful Bellas Artes in Mexico City. An old opera house, now the home of the largest Frida Kahlo exhibit ever and lots of Diego Rivera murals.
The main Cathedral in Mexico City.
The daily process of taking down the flag in the central square of Mexico City.
The jungle on a drive down to Chiapas.
No-till field on the left, tilled field on the right.
A no-till field that, sadly, had to be tilled under after three years because no one in the region had the implement needed to cut ground-cover.
A dog in Dolores Jaltenango. One of thousands of stray dogs I have seen thus far in Mexico.
The wiring in houses here is amazingly external.
A streetscape in Dolores.
Most people here own chickens. Not a bad idea.
A bucket which seemingly is inviting mosquito growth. Haven't been bitten much yet but judging from these babies the season for blood sucking is yet to come.
Our truck in Melchor Ocampo.
Farmers working their field outside of Ocampo.
Two of our interviewees planting maize seed by hand in their enormous no-till field.
More fields... outside of Ocampo...
Pretty topiary in Villa Flores.
Lizard love in the zoo in Tuxtla.
Two ferocious jaguars.
Boatside view going up Sumidero Canyon.
A pretty thing in the middle of a town square near Sumidero Canyon.
A pretty thing near the pretty thing near Sumidero Canyon.
Night shot from outside my hotel window in San Cristóbal de Las Casas.
Me examining myself in a hotel mirror.
Walking the clean streets of San Cristóbal de Las Casas.
In the south of Mexico fruit is literally laying around on the ground waiting to be eaten. I don't understand why people would ever bother buying candies.
Last season's corn left to strengthen the soil.
I don't know who Carlos Grossman is, but he sure has some nice tile-work in front of his house.
A typical roadside stand full of tasty things I can't name.
Part of the Diego Rivera murals at the National Palace - one of the most beautiful works of art I have seen in my life.
A policeman overlooking the courtyard of the national palace. Ever present, if not vigilant.
A moth died sitting on my windowsill.
The table, floor, and chair of a punt in the Xochimilco canals.
View from CIMMYT's main gates. Bare field in foreground, corn next, offices in the far center, dorms on the far right, La Puri on hill at center, clouds above.
A vertical panoramic of the inside of Bellas Artes.
CIMMYT's test fields for maize. This is, apparently, field C-1.
So much fieldage. The mountain in the far right is a volcano.
The main church in La Puri. Below is one of four dogs I watch humping one another every morning while I wait for the bus.
A sad garland over the main square. I don't think there has been a day yet when I haven't heard fireworks at least once. There's always something to celebrate. It's usually a Saint.
There's a man who owns a horse and a small colt who lives down my street. He rides the horse and the colt follows behind, sauntering about as if he doesn't have a care in the world.
Again, the church, and my friend, the dog.
Picking a guanabana.
Laying out on a punt in the canals of Xochimilco with new friends.
At a recent party, I was the one to defeat the pinata. Notice that unlike cheap American pinatas, many here are made out of terracotta rather than paper mache. It is also to be noted that rather than being filled with delicious sweets like chocolate, the pinatas are full of abominations like corn flavored lollipops covered with chili.
A passing punt driver.
A small cross overlooking the valley of Mexico City.
Big golden angel in Mexico City.
Corn fields at sunrise.
My friend Jen, triumphant, looking over the valley behind the hill behind my house.
Sometimes you just have to look like you're a big deal in front of a helicopter. This was one of those times.
The main campus of CIMMYT from a rooftop I was really supposed to be on.
Most of the homes here are made of cement - so lots of the wiring and piping happens on the outside. This thing is beautiful, though no longer functional.
I am triumphant, a top a water tower, south of Texcoco.
The long way down from a watertower.
The long way up from a water tower.
Sunset a top a water tower.
Jello for lunch at CIMMYT. Notice the adorable logo on all the bowls.
A fuzzy friend on the pathway.
I love the paintings they have on walls here. This is a classic Sol beer add placed atop a Corona ad.
A rousing game of pre-storm volleyball.
I don't know what was going on here. It was either two bugs mating or one bug shedding.
The Baths of Nezahualcoyotl.
This is the building with wings on it in Mexico City. It just might be the national lottery.
A little friend comes to visit my field of view.
This liquour is Chartreuse It shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.
A delightful avocado tree bearing fruit. Notice the little things in the far left. I have no idea what they are, but they look like the beginnings of invaders.
A single fig grew from this gnarled tree. Beautiful, it be.
I don't know what fruit this is. I guessed a clementine. Someone told me I was wrong. I don't recall what the right answer was. Tangerine?
Sometimes you find the most delightful little beasts hiding in the most magical of places.
The church in Tepoztlán on a usual graying Mexican afternoon.
The inside of an old Oaxacan convent.
Everything behind me? I built it. In one day. That's the sort of thing I do in my spare time.
This was Cortez's house. We also saw the oldest church in the continental Americas a bit around the corner.
The top of Oaxaca's main Cathedral reaching towards the cloudy sky.
This corner is everywhere in Mexico. Old, crumbling, beautiful.
This was a series of stalls which were grilling meats. Never have I walked through air quite so smokey before.
I dunno. I just like this picture.
This is a delicious chilli pasilla. I had a delightful conversation with the owner of this restaurant about the various types of chillis which he uses and why.
Looking down the main coridor of the Cathedral in Oaxaca at night.
It's almost as if they want someone to die.
People made these paper mache heads that they stuck fireworks on and then ran around the main square. It was nuts.
This woman's head was on fire. It had something to do with Jesus.
There was a big fireworks display to celebrate the Assumption of Mary (I'll admit to not quite understanding what that means).
This man would charge the crowd holding his flaming burro.
Sparks would fly everywhere, people would stampede away, and they slowly return to witness the danger again.
This is my life.
This, is also my life.
I love that you can't quite tell what sort of reptile I got really close to for this photo.
Just a friendly iguana!
My head and a gilded ceiling in Oaxaca.
A balloon seller late at night in the Oaxaca City main square.
Oaxaca's main cathedral.
Looking contemplative in a wheat field.
Looking down the street of Oaxaca city,
On the top of the world at Monte Alban.
Dancing in old flour mills with Eloise.
I have been known to turn into a ghost when in particularly nice wheat fields.
He's watching you.
I even taunt death.
Pigeons swoop about the Jama Masjid mosque.
Birds diving about with the greatest of ease.
The pillars at the Red Fort in Delhi.
Traveling has made me realize how much opportunity that we pass up with out dull building tops.
There are many things I don't understand in India. This short play starring a man in white face is one of those things.
Performing a field survey of weeds in rice fields.
The sunset is pretty nice from on top of the world.
Mussouri seems to just spill down the mountainside everywhere.
Sometimes you can see the Dun valley bellow - sometimes the smog makes it look like I am on a mountain rising right out of the sea.
The foothills of the Himalayas roll to the horizon, then go up.
A little chicken under a little house with turquoise all around.
Mussouri is just a big quilt of rusty buildings spilling down a hill side.
The sunsets in Mussouri are pretty nice, I guess.
Anything can happen in the street in India (except for men and women holding hands, apparently). Here are some chilis geting all dried out by the mountain sun.
For clothes to surive this country they have to be strong. Beaten in rivers, hung out to face the harsh sun.
There are monkies everywhere in Mussouri. These ones are eating trash - in the cutest way possible to eat trash.
This tiger skin is 125 years old and rests in a colonial style hotel at Cloud End in the foothills of the Himalaya. My bum is only sticking out because I couldn't reach a good place to set my camera. Yeah.
A little temple upon big Benog Hill outside Mussouri.
You're supposed to ring this bell while saying a prayer. Instead I ran my head into it while getting something out of my backpack and fell to the ground with my ears ringing.
Such lovely tridents you have.
Below this flag was a small cave with Hindi statuary. They didn't photograph well.
A view of the moon going down at sunrise from my loast morning on top of the world in Mussoorie.
A little house with a slightly larger cactus in the Nek Chand Rock Garden.
I worked at the American Folk Art Museum in New York for a little bit. They liked the work of Nek Chand, an Indian artist with strange habits. This is part of his enormous and way trippy rock garden.
I really like this cat mosaic.
These horses were giant.
Statues of monkeys aren't quite as good as real monkeys, but nonetheless cute.
Nice palm trees rest in the sun in road side rest areas.
Yeah, the Golden Temple is pretty. It's got 750 tons of gold on it. It better be.
Sun rise takes just as long as it takes for my butt to fall asleep.
A delightful orange fishy fish in the bathing, drinking, fish, moat-pond.
Pilgrims making the big loop around the temple.
In the kitchen of the Golden Temple thousands and thousands of chapati are made by the volunteers to feed to pilgrims for free.
I am not quite sure what this woman was doing outside of the mess hall, but it was quiet and beautiful.
The Sikh faith takes a bit from Hinduism and Islam. Their architecture does too. Lots of spires.
A temple is always a stone's throw away.
Yeah, that's right. Erin and I are having a sword fight with flaming swords.
I take wheat very seriously. So does Punjab.
Yeah! Wheat! Yeah! I love that stuff! Let's make it brass and put it on a pedestal!
Keep off the grass, the Taj is watching.
The Taj Mahal is real into symmetry. This is one of the four identical gates to the tomb.
Peek-a-boo!
Omigod there are people everywhere. Omigod this is way too overwhelming. I hate culture.
Obligatory picture in front of Taj Mahal. The look on my face closely approximates how I felt at the time.
That guy in the center is really tiny.
All the squiggly stuff? Look real close. Yeah - inlays of Koranic verses in Arabic. This is why this job took 20,000 people.
The inside of a delightful half-dome at the Taj Mahal.
Flower and inlay!
This is what the ceiling of a tomb should look like. Way to go Taj Mahal!
After a while of taking pictures of one of the more photographed buildings on Earth, you begin to get a little wonky.
The long walk into Agra fort.
The long drop off of Agra fort.
Sunrise fought its way through the smog to give me some light rays at the Agra fort.
Monkey maternal love.
If you have seen something cuter than this, I pity you.
This building is known as the 'mini Taj' even though it looks nothing like the Taj. Nonetheless, I think it was much cuter.
The river through Agra has near done dry up.
Cute little towers.
Beautiful inlayed ceilings of stars.
Me looking snarky infront of a delightful pattern.
Which one is the monkey?
“Subprime morgages? Please! Tell me more!” “Well, you see...”
I love that this sign is needed.
Fishing boat in Cochin.
Stairways in organic coffee shops in Cochin.
A fair is a fair everywhere. Notice man in center right weating lungi - basically a sarong - and looking way more comfortable than I am in my pants.
Boredom befalls carnie.
Banana flowers.
A vegetable seller giving me a bit of one of his lime-grapefruits.
This sweet fruit looked like salmon. Thankfully, it tasted of citrus.
Stormy skies over the Keralan backwaters.
A crow crosses the backwaters at sunset.
Sticking my head out of the window of one of many trains in India.
Christmas stars adorn a cathedral in Thiruvananthapuram.
The communists are in power in Kerala. They plaster everything with commie stuff just like a good commie would.
I kill mosquitos like my life depends on it. Though it doesn't. Malaria isn't in Kerala. And I am taking pills. Stop worrying, ma.
Jumping spiders everywhere! Even on my table cloth.
Lighthouse by night.
Out the lighthouse window.
Cute little goat in a cute little pile of trash.
Gyrating + Santa Clause = New Years.
Big Santa Clause on the beach for New Years. Sure.
The Christians in Kerala are mostly Syrian Christians. They are part of Saint Thomas' crew. Yeah. THAT St. Thomas. The Apostle. He got lost and wandered all the way over here and started converting folks. Talk about an over achiever.
Scraggly tree in the Western Ghats.
My guide of the jungle, checking for the rare but deadly Asian lion. Don't worry. None found. Sigh.
Coconuts, coconuts, everywhere.
You could just about fall asleep in these skies. Or in the rice fields. Whichever.
The beautiful sky reflects on the beautiful backwaters.
Little rolls of chapatti dough all swirled up.
The chapatti rolling man.
Beautiful little flower.
If you can't quite read it, that ice cream is 'Super Good.' Or at least it claims to be.
Am I in France already? Yes... ish. Pondicherry is a former colony of France and keeps some of it like the adorable street signs which are also written in Tamil.
Epcot meets NASA with a bit of Heaven's Gate thrown in there for good measure.
There are dinosaurs here.
One of Mumbai's big problems is the Rent Act which has made life real hard for property owners. Unable to kick out tennants or raise rents (some have remained at the same rate as they were in the 1940s) many property owners just let their buildings fall apart - only being obligated to maintain the parts which are still occupied.
The is Chowpatty beach at night. It's jst this crazy, even without the long exposure. People everywhere, everything is for sale, and hand opperated ferris wheels for the kiddies.
Mishti dhoi at Brittania.
The British did some nice faux-Victorian architecture while they were in Mumbai. I don't know what this does, but it's pretty.
Haji Ali, a mosque on an island off the coast from Mumbai, scarcely recordable through the thick smog.
Trying to look engaged with a baguette, photo 1.
Trying to look engaged with baguettes, photo 2.
The rival bakery's baguette. It was pretty good, I gotta admit.
From the top of the Eiffel Tower you can see all of grey, grey Paris. A sun beam breaks free to highlight the Arc de Triomphe.
This museum has plants growing all ups the walls. I never went inside, but it's a wicked cool outside.
Paris boasts statues all about - more mythical creatures of all materials - including this Pegasus plated in gold.
Beautiful greenhouses in Paris parks, stout and rounded.
The French have a love-hate relationship with nature. They will plant things, only if they can then control them completely.
Leaning over the back of my bench I saw a lovely upside down view of Buffon.
Ready for lift off? Some crazy building in Paris at sunset.
A tough task in the pasty making side of things is properly tucking in dough to tart pans, one of my half there successes.
The corner of the palace at Versailles.
Love' statue on the grounds of Versailles.
Another example of foreign roofs beating US roofs by leaps and bounds.
The beautiful reflection off of the canals of Colmar in Alsace.
Such a lovely roof top. Such a lovely sky.
That's a stork on the left and a weather vane on the right.
Trying to lift the largest rolling pin in the world at the International Bread Museum in Selstat, France.
All the little villages in Alsace have their own towers and castle bits. I can't help but think how I would have turned out if I had grown up in a town with a castle.
Trying to look engaged with baguettes, photo 3.
I missed freedom so much, I flew back from France to the US for a weekend to see Lady Liberty.
Mary, atop the basilica.
The ornate and absurd basilica of Mary in Lyon, France.
Side by side French apartments. No space, no spaces.
The churchscape of Lyon.
One of the cable-stayed bridges in Lyon, France.
Manarola, a darling little Italian town trying not to slip off the hillside into the sea. If they were to stop planting their crops, the soil would lose all its stability and all thing would fall apart.
Italian coastline on the Cinque Terra trails.
Nighttime coastline of the Cinque Terra outside of Riomaggiore.
A darling painting of a swordfish on an electrical box in Corniglia, Italy.
Bologna's tower is just about ready to topple over.
A gloriously bulbous church top in Bologna. A few blocks away I had something which closely resembled a chicken fried steak, but amazingly good.
The stars and stars formed by the dome and cupola of a church... somewhere in Italy.
A castle tower made of lovely red brick. A part of the University of Gastronomy campus located outside of Bra, Italy.
The back of a statue of someone who had something to do with Jesus in Lucca, Italy.
The view down the Arno River in Florence.
I had the best pig of my life in this little trattoria. It blew my mind so hard, right after finishing it, I ordered another.
The tower beside the Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore (or the Duomo) in Florence.
Obligatory picture of the Colosseum. I must admit, after all the time I spent studying all the death that went on here back in grade school, I was a bit disappointed by the building itself.
One of the seemingly million halls leading to the Sistine Chapel. The Pope's pad has scarcely a spot left uncovered by gaudy stuff.
This spiral staircase (barely visible) was designed so horses could go up it, because apparently the Pope sometimes wants horses on the fifth floor of his palace.
The dome of St. Peter's Basilica. I spent several hours here brushing up on my history of the Catholic church. Whoa.
Light beaming down from the hole in the roof of the exquisitely simply Pantheon.
Little dove in the center of a big dome in St. Peter's.
The water damaged rooms of the delightful agricultural museum. This room was all about the horses.
I want this poster so bad. And if I had given the guard two bucks I probably could have had it.
A lovely rooftop on a mosque in the City of the Dead in Cairo.
The dome of a museum in Zemalek in Cairo.
A bread subsidy truck in downtown Cairo sold my the sweetest old man.
This woman is selling bread on a (sort of) street corner in Cairo.
Yazem sells bread from the back of his motorcycle in downtown Cairo.
Baladi (local) bread, covered in bran and filled with whole wheat. Chewy, dry, whole wheat.
Camels, pyramids, sand.
I love forts. I wish I could have a fort of my very own.
I can't help but wonder, what do these fishermen do if they need to go to the bathroom between tides?
The harbor of Alexandria with its colorful boatage.
