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5/7/12: Yestarday, I roamed off the menu for a whole roast pig in Astoria, Queens.

3/27/12: The latest edition of The Panama News contains a piece I wrote about a visit to the Chocolateria y Bomboneria Sebastian in Panama City.

11/11/11: Juvenile delinquency or trendy fashion opportunity? I'm talking about stilettos hanging on a telephone wire.

9/14/11: Has goat meat just gone urban chic? At Matador Life, I discuss how the subjects of an experimental goat husbandry project in Vermont ended up on a spit in a Brooklyn, New York backyard.

9/12/11: On a recent visit to Montreal, I reunited with the Fresh Paint of the City's Street Art.

8/3/11: Got stencils and wheat paste? Matador Nights just published my photo essay on the Sick Street Art of Montevideo.

7/30/11: Reflecting on past travels in Texas, I explore the relationship between barbecue and crude oil here.

6/28/11: Panamanian langostinos find themselves on a Greek grill in my latest blog: Waiter, There's a Monster on my Plate.

5/28/11: My piece “I Was a Thai Travel Trinket” appears in USAToday’s travel section today, thanks to their partnership with Perceptive Travel.

5/3/11: My latest piece over at Perceptive Travel recounts a massage I received in an unexpected place in Bangkok. No, it’s not what you think. Really!

5/1/11: Asparagus have begun appearing at farmer's markets across the northeast. Why steam them when you can broil them with pine nuts?

4/11/11: A pepperpot says to a parsnip: "Where have you been all my life?" The recipe is here.

3/14/11: Observations from travel around Turkey: What’s so Funny about Death?



News Archive




Lowell Thomas Awards Silver Medalist: Is There a Hole in the Boat? Tales of Travel in Panama without a Car

IS THERE A HOLE IN THE BOAT?
Tales of Travel in Panama without a Car

"DuFord introduces us to the people of Panama, and he does it hilariously
and most perceptively."
Eric Jackson, The Panama News

"DuFord...does what few nonfiction writers can do. His words transport us to another world." Lynn Peterson, BookReview.com

"Highly recommended." Laurel Johnson, Midwest Book Review

Bring your appetite. Bring gifts for the king of the Naso tribe.
Join Darrin DuFord as he hikes, bribes, and barters his way across Panama, a perennially overlooked filament of the tropics where DuFord encounters a startling richness of cultures between the nation's two coastlines. Sitting down with everyone from scientists to town barflies, DuFord samples such local delicacies as fermented corn homebrew and slow-barbecued jungle rodent while, at every turn, taking the more vernacular--and much more enriching--options of transportation.

Whether jostling in the back of a pickup truck serving as the local bus or uncovering how the country is tackling its ecological quandaries, DuFord opens a window into the little-known day to day struggles and pleasures of the Panamanian people. Is There a Hole in the Boat? reveals a Panama that is not simply a place to watch bloated cruise ships edge along the walls of the Canal. It's a land where the machete can slash through just about anything--except the nation's spirit.

Browse an excerpt here!


Is There a Hole in the Boat? is available in paperback at:

Barnes & Noble
Amazon.com
Booklocker.com(direct from the publisher)

Also available at Amazon Canada, Amazon UK,
Amazon Germany, and Fishpond (Australia).

Kindle: Get the Kindle version here.

iPad / iPhone / iPod Touch: Get it at the iBookstore.

Nook: Get the ePub version from Barnes & Noble.

PC or Mac: order the book as a PDF file from Booklocker.com. Or, if you have downloaded the Kindle reader, you can order the Kindle version.

©2012 Darrin DuFord