Back across the Pond!

April 2013

So the journey continues... from the steamy, placid tropics I returned back to San Francisco and the Default world.  For a time, the stability and familiarity of a place - and of course the companionship of friends and colleagues - is enough to satiate that gnawing curiosity of places unknown and unexplored.

Only by approaching my home-turf with the eyes and ears of the traveller (a perspective gained only once one passes through the unknown.. or certain drug-induced experiences, I presume), I can lay aside the wanderlust that is ever kept at bay - and explore this City anew for a while.  My instagram account ( @HalcyonSurfer ) is another outlet I began to cultivate in the meantime.. but now it just reinforces that travel itch.  Also, sharing is caring - all my work carries a Copyleft and is open for free use under Creative Commons Licensing (see below, link)

The photos laid out heretofore are taken with a Sony Cybershot DSC-HX30V 

 
These works by Tim Paez are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

26 April 2013 -

That impulse is what drives me here: on the plane, overnight, hurtling across the Atlantic Ocean.  What beauty I saw this evening while in transit - as if to usher me into the next phase of this spellbinding journey called Life (and from the US to the EU) with a premonition of what I would contemplate and learn while trekking - reminded me of the brilliantly unsuspecting joyous moments that arise anywhere, at home or while on the move, when our guard against the unexpected is down and when we can greet the world with a smile rather than a grimace..

Here it begins - my first view EVER of Aurora Borealis!  After a few relatively quiet days with family, this view from the plane teases my wanderlust on my first voyage to the UK.  At this latitude, the Northern Lights were not so visible to the naked eye.  8 sec shutter speed, somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean.

In the radiance of those thoughts do I arrive to Heathrow, outside of London.  I feel like I know my one destination - the overarching one, I think - but I know not my route in between.. and I'm damn near giddy at the prospect!   

Liverpool it is!  A lively port city, with roots in the shipping and sailing industry that go back further and deeper than the age of most U.S. cities.  Here, long the center of the city's main trades, is Albert Dock, Liverpool, UK.

Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral, rear entrance.  This was an exciting stumble-upon during an itinerant amble through Liverpool on my first day there. And yet another favorite photo of mine..

Stained glass inside of the grand, luminous lantern tower of the Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral.

    

Badass statue of Poseiden, god of the Sea, ringed by a green and aquamarine stained glass wall. All housed inside this magnificent, commanding cathedral.  I should have known here the prolificness with which I would find such edifices in the EU - the diversity and amount of places of worship found here, active or preserved, is ASTOUNDING. 

A very warm welcome to the politics and culture of beer of Europe! Prohibition era photo on the outside of a bar - "Do not cease to drink beer, to eat, to intoxicate thyelf, to make love, and celebrate the good days."  Liverpool downtown, UK.

St. Lukes Church - bombed out and gutted almost completely during World War 2 - now stands as one of the most remarkable conversions of urban space I have ever seen....

...where a combination community art space and public garden exists in tandem with an array of local events - public  (art shows and concerts, etc.) and private (weddings, fundraisers, etc.) - that take place throughout the year.  A remarkable re-utilization of space...

..in all its elements. 

Some of my favourite of many fine specimens of art from inside the World Museum in Liverpool.   A wonderful day spent here, and around town, exploring with a local side of the city new friends.

Wartime propaganda poster, from a very cool collection inside the Merseyside Maritime Museum, Liverpool, UK.  One of my very favourite museums - anywhere.  Many thanks to the good friends who both suggested and joined me to visit here.

This... this was a very cool exhibit.  Funny and engaging, there was certainly a bit of learnings to be done in this section on an unsung part of maritime culture.  

You'll have to view this one at full-zoom - 'Polari' was the subculture language used by GLBTQ sailors and their allies on the seas. 

For communicating about their more liberal lifestyle, particularly at sea, Polari was (is?) the slang of the GLBTQ maritime community.  It was a gauge, and both a second glance and a more informal dialect of discourse, amongst each other, their allies, and other friendly passengers.

Culture & People

La Gente y su Cultura

17 - 24 Jan 2013.  Partway through a rather short trip - and a few hundred photos in - I'm feeling like there's a strong undercurrent of some unique vitality here.. ..some lively thread that makes Panama not solely a Central American country, but a worldly one.  Still, it remains wholly a Latin country with many elements of society retaining such distinction - cultural, economic, and otherwise.  That, but with a more robust sense of liberalized FUN - for a country in the Americas, anyway. 

In this post, I selected several photos from throughout the trip that i think captures that multicultural juxtapose.  These photos were all taken with a Samsung Galaxy Nexus camera phone. 

I just really like this shot; a color and light balance that I think came out well. But the subject also speaks a blend - that of Old and New.  Casco Viejo, Panama City, Panama.

Reminders of home, in the outskirts of Panama City along the Panamerican Highway. Somewhere, Panama. 

My brother, playing with shadows. Vasco Viejo, Panama City, Panama.

Panamanian-made shoes - a la indigenous style. The famous cloth patterns and craftsmanship of native Panama: las molas. 'The colors, Duke! The colors!'

Decorative masks, "los Diabolicos"

Pre-mixed and ready to drink - original formula!  Easy to find and cheap.  Not a lick good for you.  Panama.

Up-front and simple warning, some variant of which is found on just about every packet sold nation-wide.  Solid deterrent.  Panama.

Absolutely among the top best bowls of soups I have ever had; a basic, local, seasonal seafood stew.  Would that all human settlements were so positioned as to develop sustainable food systems so nutritious as this..

Awesome blue church, somewhere along la Carretera a El Cacao, Azuero Peninsula, Panama.

Cuidado! Careful! Road hazards.  Azuero Peninsula, Panama.

Talk about juxtapose.  Watermain break, full clean-up crew deployed, and the guests still get a timely breakfast.  Effective service & tourism sector.  Las Tablas, Panama.

Cafe!! Coffee!! House-roasted, here in el Casco Viejo, Panama City. 

Take that roast, and treat a peckish feeling this afternoon, perfect when in need of respite from the outside glare.  Tropical equivalent of 'afternoon tea'.  Casco Viejo, Panama.

Up close and personal with the Bean.  Presented here: two different stages before the Great Roast - and two types of bean preparation, natural and washed.  Casco Viejo, Panama City.

This Panama coffee makes you Boss.  As evidenced here, with Panama City down town in the background.  Casco Viejo seawall, Panama City.

And a Marriage! Out in public and dressed to the nines.  From Casco Viejo seawall, Panama City.

To the rescue, and ready to party - in this fortification-turned-emerging-commercial zone.  Casco Viejo, Panama City. 

  Still, Panama remains a Latin country with many elements - cultural, economic, and otherwise - flavoured so and operated as such. I'm grateful I will have opportunity to travel cheaply (best - friends & family travel discounts!!) there in the future. 

This work by Tim Paez is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

Old City, New City - and the Canal in between

Urbanizacion Panama

Both within and beyond the City's bounds it's evident there's a whole other side of Panama that spans time and crosses era's.  Immediately upon arrival, on the ride from Panama City airport into the City proper, it was evident that Panama is undergoing a another big transformation in context of a long history of change.  I was shocked - as the plane crossed the mountains, out from the tropical forest abutting the Pacific sprouts a stand of glass, concrete, and steel towers.  The skyline of Panama City - in a strictly North American context - approximates New York City's in scope, Miami's in color, San Francisco's in style, and Vancouver's in its laid back vibe... all overlain entirely with Latin  and tropical threads.    

The keystone to Panama City's arch through time (post-colonial), of course, is the one and only: the Panama Canal.  It's not like a tower or building visible from any one point; though it is visible as a glimmer on the landscape when seen from one of the various mounts.  The mark of the Canal on the citysphere is evident everywhere, from the cranes dotting the skyline to the layout of the city's districts and roads relative to the port. It's clear the Canal, and the geo- and domestic political and economic history surrounding it, have shaped the current city.  Yet (as an outsider..) there seems to be something in the spirit of the (..history of the) genesis of the City that carries through all into even today. 

At some points, I envisioned that in some places I was right in a spot to capture something of each era I'd sensed there. 

A critical part of the Canal's history - rail car used in the building of the Canal. Panama City, Panama.

 

Seen on approach -Panama City.  Nears the Southern terminus of the North/Central American stretch of la Carretera Internacional, the Interamerican Highway.

View upstream into the Canal, with a never-ending procession of ships passing through it in either direction.  From the Interamerican Highway Bridge over the Canal.

From Old Panama City towards the New.  It's amazing what a few centuries will do to a place. 

A remnant memorial to an age quickly receding further to the past.  Here a national monument not far from the capital's center.. but rather forlorn and forgotten.  At the end of the fortress wall on el Paseo las Bovedas.

Another view of Past towards Present - from el Paseo las Bovedas, Panama City.

Reviving and restoration of the Old Pananma within the urban shadow of the New; and all within an uncertain economy.  From el Casco Viejo, Panama City.

Relics of Old Panama from the early era of the Western Colonial period in Central America.  Lit up now only..for effect.  Casco Viejo, Panama City, Panama.

My second digitally edited photo ever! I liked the framing and perspective, but the sky was basically washed out in the shot, and way to expansive.  But.. what do you think?

Private underground party, for the City's business and medical elite.  In a converted fortress bar, this was just one of the party rooms & drink corners.  No lighting effects or any digital editing - this was it.  Casco Viejo, Panama City, Panama.

Modern Panama City 'ghetto'; here, the local version of public housing.  Brand new, and from a very popular government to the poorest people, this is one way Panama City is dealing with extreme poverty in context of a quickly booming local economy. 

 

Images from beyond the City, in a very well-cared for version of the colonial-era decor that would denote all parivate buildings in the Old Panama City center.  This abode now houses a bank, hours from the city itself, in Las Tablas, Panama.

Slightly edited photo, this from inside the ruins of such a colonial-style building - in the urban style.  This crazy wreck is literally across the street from a whole complex of Panama's federal government buildings. One of the many clear exhibits that Panama is growing, and growing fast.  Casco Viejo, Panama City, Panama.

This could have gone in the post on beaches and sunsets. But this one is in fact from the wall of the fortress that surrounded el Casco Viejo, or the Old City.  That parapet now overlooks a shallow, muddy shoreline whose reach extends only to where the Panama Canals begins on the Pacific - right under that bridge where the Interamerican leaps it.  That one monumental human feat - not just its creation, but its maintenance and now concurrent expansion - has shaped everything in Panama City and strongly, almost directly, influenced everything in this part of the world.  Not only people and nations, but as seen here, the very landscape and environment, too.

The photos laid out heretofore are taken with a Samsung Galaxy Nexus 

 
These works by Tim Paez are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

Panamaniacs!

 Sunsets and Shorelines

17 - 24 January 2013.

On a whim and by request did I make this brief dream trip a reality. I admit, I was less than enthused by the destination when I was first being convinced on the idea.  Though meeting up with my family - anywhere else but 'home' - was the real draw.

However, it wasn't long after arrival in-country until I found myself enthralled and quite tickled (yea, tickled. tickled silly.) by the obvious character that touches everything and everyone here - that of being adaptable, of being the willow rather than the oak.  It's a national character developed out of the tumultuous post-colonial history this country has borne, and the dynamic economy resulting from it's geography - and of course the paradisiacal natural environment.


The first series of photos, in no real particular order...

Of course I'm starting with a sunset photo - a few more are coming and I have to space them out.  Here, just one of man amazing sunsets enjoyed by the shoreline.

My younger broseph in the bro-mobile - all on the off-road path to nowhere.  Azuero Peninsula, Panama.

Walking along the Pacific shoreline, then looking inward - this idyllic river-side estate emerged from behind the river mouths' bend. Outside Pedasi, Panama. 

Rarely was I further from the sea than this during most of my week in Panama.  Whether to sleep, read, eat, relax, drink, or anything else - the 'meow' (definitely not 'roar') of the waves was not far....

...and later that day, I wasn't much further either.  About 12 feet away from where the above photo was taken; and maybe about as many more beers deep, too.

Here, a favorite photo of mine. "Saltwater Wedge" Azuero Coastline, Panama.

Navigating the manglar waterways - local style - on the coast-side of the Azuero Peninsula, Panama.

Packing up the truck at dusk, to head back to the semi-real world.  Somewhere, Azuero Peninsula, Panama.

My first digitally edited photo.. Ever.  Through the bro-mobile's rear window, as we head back eastward.  Azuero Peninsula, Panama.

Legitimate surf trekkers wrapping up after a weekend contest. Eastern Azuero, Panama.

Seaside lounging.  My brother, living the tough life..

...and me, getting us ready for an even tougher afternoon! Near Pedasi, Panama.

Not far from most of these other shots, and a sunset unadulterated by digital editing: "Session's Over".  Near Pedasi, Panama.

The photos laid out heretofore are taken with a Samsung Galaxy Nexus 

 
These works by Tim Paez are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License