Dream Trip 2009

Great Travel Moment

The Tule Tree, near Oaxaca Mexico, is one of the worlds largest trees. While I was concentrating on how to photograph this giant biomass, a local father and son duo of musicians came over to serenade me. Because their performance was distracting me I gave the drummer a few pesos and asked in my poor spanish that they stop playing. Because they obviously did not understand I was paying them to stop playing they played even louder until I became visibly upset and tried with more vigor and pesos to persuade them to stop. Receiving money to stop playing was beyond their comprehension which caused the boys face to melt into a heartbreaking look of frustration and bewilderment because of my failure to communicate. My photo of that boys expression would become more memorable to me than all the photos I finally took of the Tule Tree.