Stateside Adventures

Far Flung is coming to you live, from the US of A!

We are back, and still adventuring.

As of yesterday, we even have phones. Feel free to call us, as we would totally rather hear from you live than email or blog comment. Really. Real-time interaction takes the cake.

On to our blog post. . .

Fed up with our lush, warm, flowering, exotic digs in Central America, we came back to the West Desert of Utah for some late-spring hiking and climbing.

Kolob Canyon is in the back side of Zion National Park and the front side of my father's property. The view from his porch isn't too crappy. We found our fleece jackets, put on long pants, and made a muddy, chilly, exceptionally fun day of it.

There is still a little bit of snow pack in the shade, and once you get in a canyon there is plenty of shade. When walking, it is warm enough to wear just a t-shirt. When standing still, the fleece jacket is a welcome warmer. There is a constant dance with the jacket on hikes like this. . .wear the jacket, hold the jacket, tie the jacket around your waist, put the jacket back on, take the jacket off, repeat.

The little trees and plants are starting to bud, so spring in the canyon can't be too far off.

After our hike, we partook of an old-school canyoneering culinary tradition - the Post Hike Devouring of the Twinkies. They were gross and kind of disturbing.












Cattails, snow, and creek.


Ian shows off his new US Parks Annual Pass.

As Seen in Panama, the Final Chapter

This final post on Panama pics and stories has just a few neat little odds and ends we wanted to document and share from our time in Panama.

1) DIY Orthotics
Check out the awesome DIY flip-flops we made. Since one of Ian's legs is longer than the other, and flip-flops cannot be worn with his fancy orthotic inserts, we made him a pair of custom flip-flops. Ingredients: two pairs of flip-flops
Pocket knife
Strong rubber-cement-like craft glue
Directions:
Use the pocket knife to cut the strap off one of the right foot flip-flops.
Spread top of the strapless flip flop with rubber cement craft glue.
Glue to bottom of right foot flip flop that still has strap.
Throw out extra left foot flip-flop.
Put your pocket knife back in your pocket, go get a cookie from the German Bakery.
Voila. Homemade vacation orthotic flip flop.

2) Public Health Heroes
This is a picture of Ian in front of the Gorgas medical center. I am deeply impressed with this amazing doctor who figured out how to control the spread of yellow fever and malaria in Cuba and Panama in the early 1900's. Gorgas is an amazing unsung hero.






3) Health Hazard/ Isn't This a Building Code Violation?
This pic was taken in our hotel room in Panama city. Notice where the bathroom light switch and electrical outlet are. . .IN THE SHOWER. That just doesn't seem wise.




4) Extra Firm Mattress
This is also from a hotel room in Panama city. Who needs a box-spring when you could have a concrete slab under your mattress?

5) Tricycle with Guns
Panamanian ingenuity shows another adaptation of everyday items to produce an ingenious, productive, probably dangerous machine for work. This motorcycle brings home the bacon.

Multi-Use, Multi-Passenger Vehicles

Thanks for sticking with FFDH!

We are finishing up our Panama posts; there were just too many good stories to stop just because we caught a plane a few days ago.

This post goes out especially to Annick and to Jesse. Read on, friends. You bike geeks will love this.

This post is all about one of my long-standing loves, the bicycle. Not the bicycle meant for pleasure or fitness, but the work-horse bicycle. The commuter bike. The grocery-getter. The one that gets used, abused, and has mis-matched parts. The one that has duct tape on it somewhere. The one that has a job to do.

We saw this kind of bike all over Panama. These bikes were not for fitness or for status, these bikes were workhorses of multi-use, multi-passenger utility.

Strollers are for white tourists. Locals know to just set the kid(s) in a bike basket.

Got someplace to go with your friend? Load up on your bike. Everybody can ride together.

Most bikes had a padded bench jerry-rigged over the top tube, in front of the seat and behind the handlebars. Most handlebars are of the ape-bar cruiser variety, which is ultra-conducive to second passenger seating.

People carry lots of goods on their bikes, including propane fuel cans and coolers.
Enjoy these bike pics, and get inspired to ride somewhere this week with a friend!! Maybe all on one bike!

Mercado de Marisco - Wanton Shrimp

Where would a guy with PhD focusing largely on fish pigment pattern development, who is also a foodie, who loves butchering meat, who also loves new adventures want to spend his last full day in Panama City? Why, the, Panama City Fish Market of course!

HOLY MOLEY! This place was gigantic, bustling, noisy, hectic, and all-business. We saw tons of the fish we had seen when snorkeling, but now they were dead and on ice.

Sushi grade tuna? Got it. Parrot fish? Got it. Corvino? Got it. Grouper? Shrimp? Lobster? Clams? Squid? Octopus? Snapper? Little yellow striped fish? Red drum? Yellow fin tuna? Mahi mahi? Sea bass? Blue fin tuna? Crab? Other fish we don't the names of? Got it, got it, got it.

Lots of restaurant people were there to buy huge amounts of lobster, shrimp and fish for the restaurants. One guy walked out with over 50 lbs of gorgeous lobster in crates on a dolly. If he weren't so scowly, we would have asked him which restaurant he was buying for, but he was too crabby to talk to.

At the market, we ate the most outstanding, amazing, buttery, fresh, delicious ceviche I have ever had. It cost $1 for a paper coffee cup brimming with shrimp, fish, octopus, squid and more fish cured in lime juice with onion and a dash of pepper and garlic salt. DELICIOUS.









There is an upstairs balcony from which you can overlook the market and snack on your ceviche. The guys butchering the fish are speedy and efficient with their knives. One fellow was making fillets in no time. Check out the video below.

Upstairs, there is also a restaurant where you can order off the menu, or take fish you bought downstairs up for them to prepare to your liking.

On the menu, one of the starters was "Wanton Cammarones". I thought we were going to get some sort of mischievous or bawdy shrimp, maybe in a suggestive outfit. Instead we just got shrimp wrapped in little egg-roll-like wrappers and fried. Quel dommage.

We also got a ridiculously huge plate of the best fried spider crab imaginable, a really nice fish stew, and a bunch of lobster tails.









After gorging ourselves into bloated distentia, we went outside to check out the fishermen unloading their catch onto the dock behind the market.

Their boats were little, sturdy, no-frills wooden boats. The fisherman were strong, barefoot, and sturdier than their little boats. Little boats would pull up alongside the dock just long enough to unload, negotiate a price, pump the bilge, get paid, and go back out.

Many of the boats had "Vaya con Dios" or "con Dios como me guia" painted on them, and there were a few walls in the dock area that had bible quotes or pictures of Jesus painted on them. Before they go fishing, the fisherman pray twice, once for going out and once for coming back.

In the background of the pics, you can see the downtown Panama skyline.

Panama Fish Market was super duper fun, and Ian was the most excited I have seen him in a long time. Why go to some dumb museum when you could go to a massive market, right?

Miraflores Locks - Panama Canal

We arrived back Stateside last night, but are still wrapping up our final Panama Excursion postings. Lucky you! As far as FFDH goes, it is like we haven't really left (Panama, that is) or came back (to the States, that is).

After a grueling all-day bus ride from our magical beach villa surf retreat, we made it back to Panama City. The bus ride took 3 hours longer than was expected due to the highway (I use the term "highway" rather generously here) being blocked off by angry and frustrated townspeople up in the mountains protesting their lack of fresh water. We don't know if the municipal water pipes were broken, or if there was no municipal water service, or if the wells ran dry, or what, but angry, frustrated and probably thirsty folks were protesting, so the bus had to turn around and detour. I hope they get what they need to live and work and be healthy.

On to the locks. . .

To set the stage for the Panama Canal Locks, think hot tropical sun, palm trees, jungle, and amazing feats of endurance, engineering, public health policy, and political double-crossing.

The whole concept of a lock canal (vs a sea-level canal, which is really just a big ditch connecting two bigger bodies of water) is really awesome. The Panama Canal, through its use of locks, lifts boats up and over the mountains that run along the length of Panama.

The Panama Canal Authority does a far better job of explaining this process, so check out their site. TURN YOUR SOUND OFF OR DOWN. There is loud audio of barge ships sounding their horns when you open the site, so if you are at work (kudos to you, you dilly-dallier time waster! ) or have sleeping babies nearby, or don't want to hear barge ship horns, turn your audio down.

http://www.pancanal.com/eng/general/howitworks/como-funcion.html

Totally cool, don't you think?

Our first stop was to watch the huge shipping boats pass through at the Pedro Miguel Locks. The Pedro Miguel Locks connect the locks to the big lake in the middle. If you are curious, check out the map of where the locks are relative to the oceans, the cities, the big lake in the middle (again, check your audio volume). http://www.pancanal.com/eng/general/howitworks/como-tour.html

We pulled over at a "scenic overlook" kind of a spot, and marvelled at the size of the whole thing. If it were not for the pesky chain-link fence, we would have been able to reach out and touch the tugs that were on hand to help steer the boats into or out of the lock channels.

Once we were sufficiently impressed and overwhelmed, Orlando herded us back into the taxi to take us to the Miraflores Locks.

The Miraflores Locks are the locks that connect the Panama Canal to the Pacific Ocean at Panama City. There is a 4 story tourist center there with a great deck from which you can watch the whole thing from above. These shots were taken from 4 stories up. . . keep that in mind when you think about the size and scope of the boats and the canal in the pictures.


The hugeness of the whole things is mind boggling. The two channels/lanes are each only about 30 yards across. The canal that splits North America and South America is only as wide as 1/2 a football field. Yet, it is totally massive, the boats that go through there seem so HUGE!!! Some fit in the canal channel with only a foot or two to spare. WOW!!



In these pictures, you can see the different levels of the water in the channel when the lock doors are close, the size of the boats in the locks, and some of our fellow lock-oglers up on the observation deck.

In our little videos below, you can see the canal filling, ships moving in and out of the locks, lock doors closing and opening. . . the whole deal.

For a real-time view of the canal, you can check out live camera links to the canal. Yay, Panama Canal Authority! http://www.pancanal.com/eng/photo/camera-java.html


The canal was completed almost 100 years ago, and is still working beautifully. For a really great history of the building of the canal, complete with all the stories of political double-crossing, US-backed revolution, the massive public health campaign to wipe out yellow fever, and the crowning engineering feats of the day, read _The Path Between the Seas_.

For quick-read factoids, Wikipedia has a nice Panama Canal Page

One last cool tidbit - since the water in the locks is fresh water from the lake, sea faring shipping boats coming through the canal reap the added benefit of having all their sea-water loving barnacles die off. Cool, huh!

Enjoy!