1. Determination.  Before I arrived in Brazil in the Spring of 2010, I decided I would learn Portuguese.  This changed my mindset for the trip, and I started to look for Portuguese language before I left.  Just make up your mind that you will learn.
2. Music.  I love Brazilian music (who doesn’t?), and I downloaded a few albums to start bobbing my head to while still in the States commuting to my job and back.  I later found this website:  http://letras.terra.com.br/that has excellent translation, and usually a linked video though it may not play in all countries depending the DRM.
3. iPhone/iPod Touch.  Any touch screen device with iOS or Android will do, but this is one of the primary tools I use dozens of times a day.  Further below is a list of podcasts and apps I use/used below.  This is a HUGE resource you must use.  If you don’t have a fancy device, at least download some of the (free) podcasts.
4. Translation websites.  Of course Google translate is quite useful, but be careful, the translations usually are only an approximation, and verb conjugations are frequently entirely wrong.  I recently found a website I quite like that has a database of actually translated documents (by humans): http://www.linguee.com.br  This is a useful resource when you are writing business documents, and need to translate jargon.  The fact that you see the translation in context beats Google translate by a mile.  A useful verb conjugation website is http://www.verbix.com/languages/portuguese.shtml
5. Movies and television.   This one is kind of a no-brainer, but watching Brazilian movies with English (at first) and Portuguese (later) subtitles greatly speeds up learning.  I loved  A Mulher Invisível, and Tropa de Elite (1 and 2) has much acclaim over here as well.
6. Brazilians!  Last ingredient in the mix is of course the wonderful people of Brazil.  You’ll never meet a more affable and inclusive crowd who will go out of their way to be helpful and hospitable.  Don’t just hang out with your gringo friends!  I see this frequently in hostels and think it’s really too bad.  Meeting a Brazilian girlfriend/boyfriend can be a tremendous help as well, as long as they don’t speak too much English of course.

So let’s chat some more about the iOS apps and podcasts out there.  The Podcasts work on any mp3 player.  I’m not sure if the apps are available on Android as well.

1. Podcast “Ta Falado”.  This podcast is published by a professor of Portuguese at the University of Texas, Austin, and I think is extremely well done.  It is titled as a Portuguese lessons for Spanish speakers, but even if you don’t have much Spanish this podcast will help you (and maybe you’ll learn some Spanish at the same time). it’s the only podcast I can recommend strongly.  There are others out there, but they are usually to short, and spend half the podcast with some introduction you don’t care about promoting their website.
2. App “Portuguese-English Dictionary by Ultralingua”.  I actually wish I could recommend a different dictionary app like those by French publisher LaRousse which are excellent, but Ultralingua is in fact the best one out there, and they know it allowing them to charge $20 for this app (Larousse does not currently publish a pt-en dictionary though they have a pt-fr one).  Of course you probably wouldn’t hesitate twice in the bookstore to spend that kind of money, so get it if you’re serious about learning Portuguese.  The fact that you will always have your phone on you, means you also have a dictionary and full verb conjugations in your pocket at all times.  This is a very powerful tool and a must-have!
3. App “Byki Brazilian Portuguese”.  This is a great app to get you going even back in the homeland with all kinds of survival phrases and words with pronunciation and flashcard test.  This app really shows how language learning has changed through touch devices.  It’s like a mini rosetta stone for much less money.
4. App “Amazon Kindle”.   I haven’t switched to iBooks, and they may offer this feature  as well:  Whenever you’re reading a book in the kindle app, if you hold down on the word, the app flashes a quick dictionary definition without editing the book.  Here’s the kicker…it also does this with books in Portuguese!  This is huge.  Once you are at a level when you want to try to read a book in portuguese being able to look up words greatly reduces the pain of learning.

Hope that helps — comment with any questions and boa sorte!

In preparation for carnival, I have been reading a book  recommended to me by a Brazilian friend.  It’s called Carnival no Fogo or Carnival under Fire in English by Ruy Castro.  Castro’s writing is witty and funny and gives the reader a history of Rio from the years of the first discovery by the western world until today, as well as the historical and cultural background of the famous carnival.  I highly recommend it  for any Riophiles or anyone planning on going there.

The trip came together out of pure serendipity, as I was visiting my friends Rafe and Laura in Mexico, when I had an opportunity to tag along with Laura, who was tagging along with the parents of a childhood friend of Rafe’s — Jack and Sandy — long time friends of a Huichol family.  Laura and I met up with Jack and Sandy at night in the Guadalajara airport and from there we drove to the town of Tepíc, capital of the state of Nayarit just north of Jalisco.  This is Mexico-central where the landscape alternates from rugged canyons and sierras to soft rolling fields with endless rows of blue agave — the plant that produces the heralded Tequila.  The Huichols don’t live in Tepíc, but do come down from their villages in the sierra to buy goods in the local hardware stores and supermarkets, and also sell their artwork — a mixture of textile and bead work that is very colorful and quite pretty to look at.  Mid day we left Tepíc for our host family’s settlement set back 10km or so off the main road.  After a bumpy ride in our capable front wheel drive rental car we pulled into the village.  Instantly the car was surrounded with kids, but after they all came and said hello to Jack and Sandy and met us they went back to their business of playing and hanging out.  A little girl called Brisa proudly showed Laura and I the family pets, a pair of falcons found as babies.  The male bird, obviously was used to Brisa, cooing gently when she walked up and not really paying too much attention when she yanked on his tail a few times, as if he were the family Labrador.  Brisa’s mom yelled out from the kitchen to leave the bird alone, and later she came over to feed these impressive predators their daily meal of raw meat.  Eagles (same as falcons to the indians) have important symbolical meaning in Huichol religion as they reside in the sky and their feathers impart special powers to the shaman.

Preparations for the festival were already under way when we arrived,  and at night, the first ceremony kicked off and we met Joaquin, patriarch and budding shaman of the family.  This was Joaquin’s first year solely conducting the Fiesta del Tambor, and his powers as a shaman and confidence of the family had yet to be garnered.  The ceremony had been complicated as well by a family strife between Joaquin and his brother (who lives 20 yards away) much to his mother’s discontent.  Notwithstanding his internal stresses Joaquin welcomed Laura and I and expressed his joy at us sharing the  ceremony with his family.  Chanting and some early offerings occurred, and the beating of the drum and the stoking of the sacred fire commenced.  We were invited to participate and made offerings of corn and chocolate to the altar.  We also placed corn in the fire, an important symbol for the Huichols, and throughout the night, shaman Joaquin would shake his feather-clad prayer wand called a muwieri from the fire to the heavens and back while mumbling prayers and apparently having deep exchanges of some sort.  A young bull had been brought out during the day and was tied on a string nearby quietly grazing whatever he could reach.  Jack clued us in that the bull  was to be slaughtered by knife at some point late in the night.  At one point the whole party got up and gathered around the bull, now a little spooked by the sudden attention and probably wondering what we wanted from him.  As Joaquin chanted the group passed around the ceremonial knife that we all flashed to the chosen bovine.  As I showed this animal its tool of  imminent death, I couldn’t help but notice the knife seemed kind of shiny and cheap, more of decoration quality, but I guessed it would have to do the job.  The group moved back to the fire and the drum, and the bull went back to grazing.  Laura and I vowed to try to stay awake for the slaughter, but I went to bed not a 100% convinced I wanted to watch.  I, in fact, did not get up, but was awakened in the night by a long protesting mooing – a swift death it was not.

The following day was marked by a ceremony involving the young children of the settlement.  The children perform this spiritual voyage the first seven years by shaking their prayer rattlers for hours while the Shaman goes around and performs some rituals on them.  I was impressed how these young children sat still on a chair in the sun for so long without much protest.  The night held some more chanting, and fire, and drumbeating though the energy level wasn’t quite what it had been the day before.  The heat of the daytime ceremony and the continuous praying and ceremony leading had left the shaman and his troupe exhausted.

The final day, a Sunday, made me think of Christmas.  It was a day where the extended family and village friends gathered and exchanged offerings and gifts.  Joaquin’s brother also came, and it was clear this was an emotional healing for both of them.  Everybody received a portion food offerings and took them to be blessed by Joaquin.  The food we ate consisted of squash, elote (corn), and jerked bull.  the corn was dry and chewy but very tasty, and the squash tasted delicious.  The woman had also been brewing a corn beer called tesguino, a wild-fermentation, acidic, and mildly alcoholic beverage that looks like café con leche.  Most of it was hard to get down, but all the women came around with their bucket (as in the plastic rubbermaid kind) and spooned out a teacup’s worth expecting you to down it.  I was sure I would have some dire intestinal effects following this force feeding, but all turned out all right in the end.

At the end of the weekend, I felt truly privileged to have had the opportunity to spend time with such a gracious group in their special time, and felt very grateful for our new friends Jack and Sandy’s who shared so freely their garnered knowledge of the Huichols.  Thank you both, and Laura for letting me tag along!

You can read more about Huichols here:

http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/estados/62999.html

Chris and I spent a rainy night in Bryce Canyon, but were rewarded with sunshine the next morning.  We proceeded to walk down into the canyon along the Queen’s Garden trail — an easy path with quite a few hikers on it, but we found it well worth our while.  Bryce Canyon is so unique, there really isn’t a bad photo to take.  In just about any light condition the colors really pop.  I tried to shoot some lightning at sunset, but alas, that is a tough proposition and I did not get a capture.  I found it a fun activity though much akin to fishing, and I will try again in the future.

On we rolled to Zion National Park, where the rain let up initially, and we enjoyed a sunset hike to Angel’s Landing —  a somewhat perilous hike with rewarding views looking down the majestic Zion Valley.  The park’s names nearly all are biblical and Mormon references, and that seemed apropos as the place feels heavenly.  The following day we had several options on the table, but Chris had a hankering to hike The Narrows — a famous slot canyon hike popular in summer (it was now fall), and I was certainly interested in checking it out as well.  To tackle the hike, we were recommended to rent drysuits and some special canyoneering boots, as most of the hike is spent wading through the river that formed the slot canyon.  The only hitch in our plan was that there was rain in the forecast for the afternoon, and flash floods are a real threat in slot canyons.  The lovely girl at the shop assured us we would be fine as long as we got out of the canyon by 1pm.  That seemed doable enough, so of we went.  The hike was marvelous,and very unique.  The dry suits turned out to be a smart decision, particularly in case something were to go wrong, and we were forced to spend some extended time in the canyon.  All turned out fine even though the rain did show up creating a dozen waterfalls on our way out of the canyon.  By the time we were covering the final quarter mile or so, the water level had risen noticeable and we had to swim some parts we walked before.  I can imagine if we had stayed in much longer things might had gotten sporty.

This trailer reminded me of the one in Kill Bill 2 where Uma and Daryl Hannah duke it out, until someone loses an eye.

My friends Chris and Scott joined me for this part of the trip, and we picked the city of Moab as our base of operations, planning on visiting Arches NP, Dead Horse Pt. SP, and whatever else we had time for before we had to drop Scott back at the Grand Junction airport.  We ended up having a blast in this veritable outdoor playground.  We hiked up to Delicate Arch, got lost in the Fiery Furnace, and engaged in various other adventures in Arches.  Outside the park we amused ourselves with stand up paddling the Colorado River (even some Class .5 rapids), and mountain biking the fabled Slickrock trail  above Moab — a global classic in mtb trails.  We managed to finish all these treacherous feats without personal injury or loss of limb though I’m afraid my rear wheel will never quite be true again…If you go to rent a bike for Slickrock, I would recommend a full-suspension bike with 26″ wheels — not a 29′er hardtail, but anyways.

Having these guys on board was the a great testament to German RV design, as we camped for five days with three adult males fitting inside a 34 year-old, 15 ft vehicle.  I think everybody was comfortable (especially me in the penthouse) though longer than this would become a challenge.  We had a fantastic time all together, and I was excited to share some of the kitebus chronicles with my friends.

Here’s a video of Chris showing us the ropes on Slickrock:

The park was quite cold while I was there with temperatures dropping down to 28ºF (-2ºC).  Campfires kept us warm, but sleeping definitely required proper gear.  Every morning the water in my glass would be frozen as well as my olive oil….brrr

I visited various parts of the park, some more touristy than others, and while everyone should (and will) visit the Going to the Sun Road, I was directed to the East side of the park by Hayley’s mom (and Glacier Park expert) Velinda for the prize hikes in the park.  The longest and most beautiful hike I did was a double header totaling a breathtaking 16 miles.  The trail I took — Iceberg lake and Ptarmigan Tunnel — takes the hiker along Glacial valleys, lakes, alpine meadows, and wildlife habitat home to Grizzly bears, Moose, Bald Eagles, Black Bear, Rocky Mountain Goats, Bighorn sheep, you name it.  I did the hike in brand new shoes, resulting in my feet being out of commission for two weeks due to heavy blistering on my heels, making me wish I ‘had’ worn my Vibram five Fingers instead…

One of my more precious memories was paddling with the SUP board on Lake St. Mary following two Bald Eagles around, and later watching a large Black bear feed on some shrubs.  Surrounded by this majestic landscape and wildlife it is hard not feel humbled and fortunate.  There’s a gorgeous French film from the eighties with fantastic cinematography that was filmed in this area: L’Ours, or “The Bear”.  Check it out.   “The Crown of The Continent” moniker comes from the fact that Glacier feeds three major North American watersheds: The Columbia, The Missouri/Mississippi, and the Saskatchewan thereby contributing water to The Pacific Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Hudson Bay.

Finding the right book isn’t easy as there are many abbreviated and interpreted versions of the journals.  I ended up getting the Bernard DeVoto edited version written in the fifties.  This edition does not include the entire journals, but close enough to feel as if you are along for the expedition on a day by day account.  Devoto garnered some respect as evidenced by a patch of the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness Area bearing his name.  L&C’s chronicles are impressive, hilarious, and quite accessible even in the original writing.  With some regularity there are encounters with Native Americans, Grizzly Bears, and other interesting features.  They really didn’t have many dull moments.  The men, in particular Clark were  misspellers of fantastical proportions finding seemingly endless ways to spell thing like “Seouex”, Sacajawea or “brackfast” etc. etc. and proving you don’t have to know how to spell to write a great work.  Pick up a copy for yourself when you travel their path.

I set out the next day with four hours of sleep and drove straight to Hells Canyon where the Snake river North and eventually joins the Columbia.  It is dammed in several spots and provides power for both Idaho and Oregon.  I took advantage of the smooth water between the Oxbow and Hells Canyon Dams to go for a paddle with my new toy, going for swims, watching the fish jump, and taking in the view.  Further down past the Hells Canyon Dam, the river is left to run its course, and the resulting rapids draws kayakers, river rafters, and they even run a jet boat for part of the river.  I did a short hike along the river , and swam in some of the milder currents.  I made a note to come back for the spring melt some time and float down the rapids — seems like it would be fun…