Today, I’m happy to announce the launch of a new site geared towards highlighting the often overlooked charms of the Caribbean. The Antilles are so much more than just beaches. The local people, food, drinks, music, natural wonders like volcanoes, hot springs, and more all add up to a unique experience that is best enjoyed by directly immersing yourself in the culture. Something you won’t find on any massive cruise ship.

So, for those looking for a deeper look into what the beautiful islands and people of the Caribbean have to offer, head over to the brand new Uncommon Caribbean site, become a fan of the UC Facebook page, look out for our latest videos on YouTube, or follow UncommonCarib on Twitter.

I need to remember to get down to the islands, explore new places and take as many photos as possible!

Wow, is it February already. Where the hell have I been.

Oh yeah…

After Martinique, I spent the holidays freezing and damp high in the Peruvian Andes. This trek was organized through Adventure Life. For the most part, it was great. Some time in Cusco acclimatizing ourselves to the altitude, then off to the Ausangate region for 6 days climbing over 17,000 foot passes, meeting Andean people, watching baby alpacas being sheered and sometimes born, visiting the markets, sampling local cuisine like guinea pig and strawberry beer… and basically taking in the gorgeousness of the often brutal landscape. (There’s a desktop or two available over at mybestdesktops.com)

After the trekking, we took the easy train route to Machu Picchu… Truly breathtaking ruins, but I wouldn’t recommend taking the train all the way there and the town of Aguas Calientes was a bit too touristy. Finally we spent the New Year in Lima drinking Pisco Sours and exploring.

Although there were many memorable experiences along the way, it was hard to compete with a month in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco. Additionally, there were some hiccups with Adventure Life… I should remember to think twice before using them again.

Immediately upon retuning to New York I had a single day to relax before heading down to Savannah, Georgia for a work shoot. The fruits of that labor should be launching soon. I should remember to chat about it then.

Then it’s been heads down working.

I should remember not to work so much… and travel more.

Le M Burger Avec Bacon

While in Martinique, I kept seeing ads for the Le M burger at McDonald’s. When traveling, I try to sample local McDonald’s just as an experiment to see how different cultures and local tastes shape international products, so naturally I had to try Le M.

This is not your average Mickey D’s! Just check out the photos.

This is real food. It tastes like a real burger! It has real bread!!! And it even uses real cheese!!!!

I should remember that even McDonald’s is capable of making real food… if only for French people.

St. Pierre - Little Pompei of the Caribbean

The island of Martinique is a gorgeous overseas department of France (like a state) right around the middle of the Caribbean chain of islands. Last weekend, I managed to take a whirl-wind spin around the island and came away very impressed.

I should certainly remember how fantastic the streets/infrastructure is, how clean they keep the place, how friendly the islanders are, how magnificent their volcano is, how delicious fresh crushed sugarcane juice is, how light and refreshing the Lorraine’s are, and how much I would love to return for a leisurely stay in St. Pierre.

PatrickBennettPhotography.com

Whipped up a new site just for travel photography. Visit PatrickBennettPhotography.com to view the just the best stuff.

Walking in the Atlas

Back from a month in Morocco largely spent trekking across the High Atlas Mountains, there’s one question people keep asking: “Was it what you expected?” What I expected? I had no expectations since I’d never done anything like this before. I simply couldn’t imagine what it would be like.

Physically, it started out demanding. Quickly became extremely demanding. Then settled into a rhythm of continuous challenges that began to feel easier only due to their consistency. Somehow when a day was ending and you imagined there was no way you’d be able to go on, the following day you would do just that.

Walking

Visually, the mountains were truly stunning. Everyday we would find ourselves dwarfed by the most ruggedly gorgeous vistas. Interestingly enough, the 3 major climbs on the trip (Jebel Mgoun (13,356 ft), Jebel Anghomar (11,837ft), and Jebel Toubkal (13,671 ft)) revealed the least inspirational images. Not to say that seeing for miles over the High Atlas wasn’t inspiring, just that there were more varied, interesting things to see walking the valleys and high passes.

Berber Girl

In the end, however, it was the people of Morocco that really made the trip an extraordinary experience. Passing through the nomadic and semi-nomadic berber villages that hadn’t really changed in thousands of years, being accosted by inquisitive village children, spending time hanging out with our berber muleteers smoking Marquis, eating lunch at Young Mohammed’s house, taking time out from doing my laundry to challenging some village kids to a game of “king of the rock” in a cold river, celebrating my birthday at a gite with an improvised chocolate/mint cake… these all made the trip the truly amazing experience it turned out to be.

On a side note, my new gear performed flawlessly! The boots alone were lifesavers that earned me the distinction of the only member of our group without hideously blistered feet. Additionally, I used every single piece of equipment I brought. Even my Adventure Medical Kit.

I should do my absolute best to remember as much of this time as possible… hopefully some of the thousands of photos I took and placed in a Morocco Photoset on Flickr will help.

I’ve never camped before in my life. I’ve slept under the stars before, sure, but that usually had nothing to do with an interest in getting away from it all. So, here I find myself one week away from a 22 day, demanding trek across the Atlas Mountains in Morocco with not a clue as to what I’ve gotten myself into… or what I need to make it through.

My biggest fear (today anyway) is that I’ll be ill-equipped for the trek and get something painfully gross like black toe where I start bleeding out of my feet and losing toe nails… or something worse. With that in the back of my mind, I began the process of researching gear and equipping myself as quickly as possible in order to have time to test everything out before I find myself cold and broken in some desolate landscape with Arabs speaking French.

The first thing I noticed when I began to outfit myself is that there’s no getting around looking like a stereotypical hiker. It was hard to do, but after enough looks from store employees after I asked for an item that “looked cooler” or had “less straps”, I resigned myself to the idea of function over form.

Anyway, here are the spoils of an afternoon spent visiting Patagonia, EMS, and Paragon:

Round 1 Trek Equipment

1. SCARPA Men’s SL M3 Backpacking Boots: I am not messing around with my feet. These seem to be top of the line.
2. Marmot Precip Jacket: I don’t expect much rain next to the Sahara, so I didn’t go wild on a hardshell waterproof layer.
3. Marmot PreCip Pant: I really hope it doesn’t rain…
4. Marmot Afterburner Jacket: Yes, this is my first fleece article of clothing ever, BUT it’s name is “Afterburner”, so that makes it automatically cool.
5. Pearl Izumi Grip-Lite Glove: I’m a little worried these won’t be warm enough when we start getting to altitude…
6. Patagonia Men’s Active Brief: If I have to walk 8 hours a day wearing the same underwear over and over, these things better be made with magic and rainbows.
7. Eagle Creek Undercover Leg Stash: How cool is this thing? Top secret document storage. (I wanted it in black, but oh well…)
8. NALGENE 32-Oz. Wide Mouth Tritan Bottle: Yeah… I needed a water bottle… I still need another one, but “testing” out the Nalgene first.
9. SMARTWOOL PhD Outdoor Light Crew Socks: They were out of medium thickness, so I’m testing out light. Still need to buy 3 or 4 more pairs if they work out.
10. NIKWAX Footwear Conditioner: To help break in the boots with the added benefit of waterproofing.
11. Casio Men’s Solar Atomic Pathfinder Multi-Band Watch: I can’t go to the wilderness without a cool gadget or two. This thing does temperature, barometer, altitude, digital compass and more.
12. CAMELBAK Omega 70 Reservoir: A bit of an impulse purchase based on a recommendation from the guy helping me at EMS. The idea of riding a camel with a Camelback does appeal to me, though…
13. OSPREY Talon 33 Pack: This was one of the most difficult purchases and the one where I truly resigned myself to function over form. It does have a pretty evil looking, skeleton bird logo, so that’s cool.
14. OUTDOOR RESEARCH Helios Sun Hat: “SolarShield™ fabric provides UPF 50+ sun protection”… so I assume that’s good.
15. Adventure Medical Trail Easy Care Kit: Only rated 1-3 days… no problem!
16. Black Diamond Contour Elliptic Shock Trekking Pole: I always thought walking sticks were for old people, but everyone I talked to assured me I would be happy I had these.
17. Men’s Merino 1 Crew: This thing is amazing. Super thin wool feels soft and delicious on your skin. Plus the cut is actually slim instead of boxy. Very nice.
18. Men’s Capilene® 2 T-Shirt: Yes, the wool Merino is nice, but its price is very high, so I thought I would test out the synthetic alternative and see if I could make do.
19. Men’s Capilene® 2 Bottoms: I hope this stuff works…
20. Eagle Creek Travel Towel X-Large: “Extra large size allows for full body coverage.” That’s what I’m talking about… but seriously, this thing better dry in a hurry.

Notice there are no pants on this list. Every pair I saw looked horrible and I just couldn’t bring myself to purchase a pair, but after doing a little more research, it would appear that I have no choice but to look like a dork if I want to be comfortable.

Oh well… once I get the pants, I need to remember to put all this stuff to the test and quickly finish gearing up.

A quarter of a mile to death...

After seeing coverage on a number of blogs I follow and The New York Times, I was excited to get a chance to check out Chicago’s newest attraction while there for a wedding last weekend. We landed in the windy city Thursday night. The next morning, we were standing in line at 9am in the basement of the Willis Sears Tower anticipating the 103 story elevator ride to the observation level.

Once up, you have to walk all the way around to finally get to The Ledge. Luckily, it was early so there wasn’t too much of a crowd. After making our way to the edge of The Ledge, you do instinctively find yourself questioning whether you should really step out onto the glass 1,353 feet above the pavement.

Of course, you do step out. It’s what you came here for. It’s certainly an interesting moment, however the exhilaration slowly moves from the focus to the periphery replaced by 2 parts awe and 1 part annoyance that the people sharing the glass enclosure with you get in the way of all your good photographs.

I should remember to indulge my tourist tendencies more often.

Miami Beach Umbrellas

Hit South Florida for a long weekend for the first time in about 4 years. Stayed at the Delano, spent some quality time on the beach and basically enjoyed myself more than I expected to… without even visiting Exxotica which was also going on last weekend!

I should remember to keep South Beach on the list of possible long-weekend recharge destinations.

(BTW, download the image of Miami Beach Umbrellas from MyBestDesktops.com)

Finally finished watching Michiko E Hatchin last night and I must say I love it when shows like this come along.

Michiko E Hatchin does a great job as something of the stylistic successor to Cowboy Bebop. It takes all the great music, the heat of the dessert, the humidity of the jungle, the serenity of the seaside villages and the frenetic pacing of the cities; wraps it all in vibrant South American colors and culture then tells an at times hilarious, painful and heart-warming story.

It certainly has me itching to visit Brazil.

I should remember to look out for more shows like this that break the typical Japanese anime mold… oh, and get down to Brazil as soon as possible.