Afternoon Birthday Tea

14 April 2012

This afternoon a friend (and student) of mine had a tea party in her home to celebrate her birthday.  I met an absolutely wonderful group of women and it was a lovely afternoon.

In true small town fashion, turns out one of the women was my Portuguese teacher, and another is the mom of another friend of mine! Living in a small town is great, I often run into people I know around town here. 

My Portuguese teacher, my student, and I.

Feliz Pascoa / Happy Easter

08 April 2012

This morning I accidentally set my alarm an hour earlier than I needed to get up to go to Mass.  The nearly full moon was still in the sky and I couldn't resist going out and trying to photograph it again, along with the garden.

This is a puny little tree no taller than me, but it has managed to grow one pomegranate, like Charlie Brown's Christmas tree.

 I don't really like persimmons, but they are so beautiful.  This was somewhat mitigated by the fact that a bird was sitting above me and pooped on my camera when I took this photo.

 The garden at dawn in early autumn.

After the Easter mass at the cathedral.

Having never been to a Catholic Mass, it was an interesting experience.  In some ways it was as expected and other ways not.  The church was absolutely full, and the service began with a processional - incense, robes and all.  The incongruous note was that under the formal robes, all the little boys were wearing athletic sneakers. There was a lot of waving around of the incense thingy on the chain by a boy about 12 years old.  I am not sure what the purpose of it was, as it seemed to happen at quite random intervals and locations during the service. Due to the speakers echoing off the vaulted ceilings and my limited Portuguese, I didn't understand very much of what was said. The choir, although rather small, was quite good.  Of course someone's cell phone had to ring right in the middle of the service, right in the middle of the congregation.  The service was shorter than I thought a Catholic Mass would be, but quite nice and dignified.  It gave me a bit of a frisson to hear everyone speaking the parts in unison. I didn't take communion as I am not Catholic, but given that the church was full, it went very quickly.  Come the end of the service there was quite a crush as everyone shuffled sedately toward the exit.

The church bells are ringing again now as I type.

 Mmmmm, coffee at Quiosque.  We sat chatting over coffee and each had a second cup.

Afterward, my friend invited me to join her family for lunch - not a formal Easter dinner but a simple and delicious family meal of potato salad (with real homemade mayonnaise) and galinhada (Brazilian style chicken and rice).  Perfect day!

Rapel no Itacolomi

07 April 2012

Today I went on a rappelling excursion with UP Aventuras.  It was a tougher hike and a much higher rappel than the one I did before.  The 360-degree view from the top of the rock was fantastic.

We parked in front of this chicken farm.  Heaven knows what the owners think of all this, but they were around the side of the house covertly watching us as we set off.

Here was quite possibly the worlds ugliest rooster.  

 We are going to rappel down the rock face at upper left.

But first, in order to get there, we have to climb through a couple of barbed wire fences and cross fields of cow patties.

 At least they were PRETTY fields full of cow patties... and the cows were on the other side of the fence.

 Into the woods we go!

The trail gets steeper...

 And yes, so steep that we had to cling to roots to climb up.

 Pausing halfway up for a little rappel lesson.

 This is what we are going to come down... about 50m of rock face.

 There are monkeys in the forest here and several were carved into the rock, along with various other graffiti. I'm a monkey face!

 Are we there yet???

On top of the world!

In true gaúcho style, they were already drinking chimarrão when I reached the top of the rock.

For perspective, just over my head is the farm where we left the cars.

 There was even a palm tree on top of this rock!

What an incredible view from the top (click on the picture to see it larger).

 There is the farm with the cars directly above my right foot.

 Going down!

 This rock face was steep enough that you couldn't see past the rim, making the first steps really a "leap of faith".

 There were some vultures flying around, one of which flew right past when I was rappelling down the rock.  This feather is so beautiful in its miniscule detail!

 There were a lot of howler monkeys below, when we arrived they were making a ton of noise.  It was a strange low growly sound, more like a herd of pigs than monkeys.  The camera mic didn't pick up the low frequency sound very well, but you can faintly hear it as an undertone in this video.

In this photo the two brown things among the leaves near the center of the photo are monkeys. Can you find them?

My turn to go down...

And the video. Can you believe I actually DID this???

Me from below. Does this harness make my butt look big? Hahaha!

The owners of UP Aventuras.

 The UP Aventuras Weight Loss Program...eeek!

Annnnd communing with nature in the form of an ant about 3cm long way too close to my head... argh!!!

Climbing back down the slippery, steep, leaf-covered trail afterward was probably more difficult than the rappel down the rock face. We alternated between going backward clinging to roots and sliding on our butts, very dignified.

I found several shells of the giant land snails in the pasture near the base of the hill.  Oh no, poor Gary!!!

Our exhausted but very happy group at the base of the hill.

Sunset, and the end of another awesome adventure!