We had an awesome time in San Juan. The beaches and hotel, like the rest of the trip, were great but in this location we had the added bonus of some historic architecture and an overall unique character for the whole place. Thank’s again to The Ritz-Carlton for making this all happen!
The first time I went to San Juan was 20 years ago when we were connecting on the way to our honeymoon. I remember that we went to dinner at a chicken restaurant and it was next door to a cockfighting arena. We had some pockmarked chicken that night, but it sure was inexpensive. San Juan has changed a lot since then! 🙂
This was my first time to explore the old town part of San Juan and I wasn’t disappointed. I also learned a thing or two! When the Spanish came over to start hauling gold away in their ships, then brought these blue cobblestones from Spain as ballast. So, upon arriving at the port of San Juan, they would dump all the blue cobblestone before filling up with gold. The locals would use all the pretty blue stone to pave the streets. Pretty nifty eh?
..to our partners at the Ritz-Carlton (we stayed here Aruba as well). We have a cool relationship because they let my family and crew stay for free and I just end up taking good photos in and around their properties. There’s no requirement that I blog post or social-media-ize anything, but I end up doing anyway because I occasionally nab interesting photos. They’re a perfect partner, since they have a 100% overlap with all the travel photography I’ve been doing anyway, and it makes it easier to bring the family along too!
Wow how beautiful is the water here? Join me in my reductionist mission here!
I was talking to an Egyptologist there and I brought up slavery during the pyramid times. He has a theory that he was able to back up on many ways that the builders were not slaves. Instead, everyone had a vested stake in the building. Since they were built to give the kings an eternity above, it’s thought that they offered to extend this eternity to the team that helped build it.
I didn’t get to spend much time at the pyramids, but I decided to make hay will the sun was shining. And boy was it! A bright bluebird day for sure. But, much to my surprise, a visit here in late January was not hot at all. In fact, it was about 19/65 degrees with a light breeze. I had to wear two layers to stay warm. I did a lot of studies of people and the pyramids, and this is one of my favorites.
Maybe many of you have read my Phantom 4 Review? I have some interesting new info for you. Well, I’m not sure the information is CORRECT, but it is information nonetheless. I currently have the P4 Pro without the built-in screen. I wanted the other one, but then an insider friend told me that perhaps getting the screen ISN’T the best idea because 1st gen stuff from DJI is usually buggy. And he’s right about that. Also, it’s hard-wired to the controller, so if the screen breaks, you can’t use the controller any more.
My friend Mark Richter is about to do some serious testing of this device in the Arctic Circle. When he returns, I’ll give you a report! 🙂
Here’s The Baths from above. It’s my fourth time here, but first time with a drone, so I wanted to try to capture it from a new perspective. We were staying at the Ritz-Carlton over on St. Thomas, which was a perfect jumping-off-spot for tons of amazing locations. A fun boat ride over brought us right here for a day of swimming and snorkeling. We had a really fun cabin crew too on the boat… the marine activities always seem to draw interesting personalities. By the way, this was shot with the aforementioned Phantom 4 Pro.
Hey if you know Arabic, you’ll really enjoy this interview. If you only know English, well then it will be a tad confusing .
I’m here in Egypt visiting the Pyramids and now being interviewed on National TV by Ossama Kamal on the DMC network. Join me behind the scenes here on Facebook Live 🙂 I don’t know if he is more like Egypt’s Anderson Cooper or Egypt’s Stephen Colbert, so let’s find out together. Thanks again to my new Egyptian friends Walid El Batouty & H E Minster of Tourism Yehia Rashed.
On the very first day here, I took my family to visit the pyramids. They were even more awesome than I expected! I have SO many photos… I could not figure out which one to work on first, but I really liked the interplay of the tree figures in the foreground with the pyramids in the far distance.
A few days ago we spent the day exploring all of the amazing sites of Cairo with our very own tour guide Dr. Zahi Hawass! What an incredible experience! Take a look at the highlights…
Three ladies in the Cairo bazaar hand over their phone to a friend to get some photos. It was a great day in the bazaar, and we saw some kids playing music in the street and singing… they were’s even looking for money or anything, just singing and having fun!
I can’t recommend this new show any more. It’s so funny and smart… Yes it’s a cartoon, but you gotta watch it! 🙂
While in Fort Lauderdale, we had some crazy storms roll in across the ocean. It turned out great for photos! I admit I probably stayed on the balcony too long to take photos… I went down to the beach to get a bunch too, but the ones from up here seemed more dramatic.
I wanted to fly my quadcopter here too but there was a mix-up with the baggage! It’s too bad because the beaches in Fort Lauderdale are amazing.
Here’s a video-recap with me and Gino about some of the highlights of our time at the Cayman Cookout on Grand Cayman Island. We had some surprise guest stars too including the only chef to be sued by the President of the United States José Andrés.
This was the view on my first morning from the room I was sharing with Gino atop the Ritz-Carlton. Somehow, we got the penthouse. We’d get into the elevator with all these people and then they would look at US clicking on the Penthouse button and they would shake their head ruefully. Well, mostly at Gino. Anyway, we were greeted with this incredible moon set on our first morning here. And the day just got better from there! 🙂
I have made a little video recording of how slow Lightroom is and I’m sending it to my peeps at Adobe. I’ll report back on what they say! 🙂 That thing just gets slower and slower and slower… Frustrating!
Here’s another one of those reductionist photos I got while in Aruba. It was so fun to work up and down the white-sand coast and pick out simple structures like this. I also like that the yellow-ring is kind of confusing. I call them sea-condoms, but that is not really what they are. That would be silly.
