There's not much to say that way more talented writers haven't said about the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. No matter what your background, it's a humbling, emotional place to visit, impossible in most ways to even make sense of. I remember the most striking thing for me, though, was the footage of the (I believe) Ukrainian soldiers liberating the camp. Most of the exhibits are powerful in their own ways, though. Click through for a gallery.
The cenotes in Tulum are underground caverns, often filled with deep pools of water. In some, there are diving platforms set up, and I stumbled into a particularly high one. Most people dived off the lower platforms, but this French guy leaped from the top, maybe 40 feet down into the deep green pool.
"Lights Go Out". The Sziget Music Festival, held in Budapest each year, is one of the largest in Europe. As well as the main stages, which have the usual suspects of international acts, there are areas devoted to indigenous musicians and what gets classified as 'world music', be that from Africa, gypsy tradtions or, in this case, Klezmer. I was watching this traditional Jewish band play folk songs and for reasons that never became clear, a fight broke out next to me. It's a weird juxtaposition, the stoicism of the singer, the religious overtones of the dress and the violent outbreak. The guy went down hard and then people stepped in. It was all over in a seconds.
The Angel Falls are the world's highest uninterrupted waterfalls, and I took a small plane to fly past them. The plane landed in the Canaima National Park, and a small group of us walked a trail that took us past and behind some of the smaller falls (it's a UNESCO Heritage Site). I was at the front and turned back to see the group, soaked and happy to be in this kind of magical environment behind the water and under this huge outcrop. The power of the water was deafening.
I really like taking photos of people who are posing for a photo for someone else. I passed a wedding party in downtown Havana, and the bride and her friend were just coming out of the church, smiling for the first of presumably many photos that day. This was just an instant before the photo they were posing for was taken - they're still comporting themselves, still candid before the more formal poses being.
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