Planning to drive from LA to Patagonia next year (looking for copilots)

[scho63]

Originally Posted by PunkinDrublic

Don’t feel bad bro. I’ve been in China since September and I can’t hold a conversation in Chinese for shit. Learning a different language is ****ing hard.

Originally Posted by Hog's Gone Fishin

I would imagine chinese would be very difficult to learn. What are you doing in China ?

I learned Mandarin Chinese back in NJ with a private tutor in 1994 after going to China/Hong Kong many times beginning in Feb of that year and feeling so completely helpless. At that time, there were very, very few English speaking Chinese except in places like hotels and that was about it. No lower level people spoke English. She taught me to speak, read and write.

You learn about tone and the Chinese radicals, which are symbols hidden in the letters and words to signify whether they are water symbols, fire symbols, earth symbols, animal symbols, human symbols, etc.

It is hard as **** to learn and it took me two weeks of practice with the teacher just to learn the phonetic alphabet. I needed a tape recorder to realize I was saying the tones wrong. You learn the "Pinyin" system of "Ma Ba Pa, Chr Zhr Shr, along with the four tones; flat, rising, dipthong, and drop tone.

You take a word like "Ba". It has 4 meanings based on your tone. The number 8, a target, a father, and a handle/plow like object.

I would NEVER take Cantonese as they have 8 tones and many are throat tones like the word NG, where you don't even open your mouth!

My breakthrough in learning the tones came as one night I imagined my voice traveling down a road looking ahead.
If the road was flat, my voice stayed even.
If the road was an incline, so did my voice.
If the road had a dip, I did the same speaking.
Lastly, if the road dropped down a hill quickly, so did my tone.

That was my AH HA moment.

[scho63]

Originally Posted by Hog's Gone Fishin

I would imagine chinese would be very difficult to learn. What are you doing in China ?

[PunkinDrublic]

Originally Posted by suzzer99

Thanks! A little bit at a time. I took another week of intensive classes (4 hours/day) in Boquete, Panama - but I was sick as a dog so I wasn't in top form and didn't do any of the optional activities.

My car is currently on a boat with the Wallenius Wilhelmsen shipping lines - until I can pick it up in Galveston July 2nd or 3rd. So I'm going back to Antigua for one more week of Spanish.

I am determined to have good Spanish before I do South America. Another reason I want to live in San Jose for a while.

Well the main thing is to be able to converse. Don’t waist time on vocabulary you’re never going to use.

[suzzer99]

Correct - read the last few paragraphs of my blog post. My foot is for shit right now and I don't want to do S. America if I can't go on multi-day hiking trips - that was the biggest highlight for me.

I had to put my car on a boat either way - it's just going to Galveston instead of Colombia. I'll be back when I can do it right with my foot, have better Spanish and have my condo better squared away.

[patteeu]

Originally Posted by suzzer99

Correct - read the last few paragraphs of my blog post. My foot is for shit right now and I don't want to do S. America if I can't go on multi-day hiking trips - that was the biggest highlight for me.

I had to put my car on a boat either way - it's just going to Galveston instead of Colombia. I'll be back when I can do it right with my foot, have better Spanish and have my condo better squared away.

I feel like you’ve welshed on our deal. I subscribed to a Cali to Patagonia blog experience.

[suzzer99]

Yeah but I like learning the weird conjugations - it's fun for me for some reason. So I retain better when it's fun I guess.

[suzzer99]

You'll get it eventually. I don't want to do it now if I can't do it right.

Costa Rica pt. 2 is up: http://ushuaiaorbust.com/2018/06/21/...nd-roads-crew/

[Perineum Ripper]

I seen you have All Terrain tires on your FJ, are you happy with that? Would you have rather had Mud Terrain tires on? Would you want a different vehicle if you did it again? Like a 4 door Wrangler or an Toyota 4Runner?

What would you change about the vehicle you took l, if anything is mostly what I’m curious about

[suzzer99]

I love my FJ. But it might be nice to have a little bit longer vehicle with a bed in back. That's the only downside.

Yeah I've been buying Goodrich All Terrain T/A since the first crappy set of street tires wore out. I'm very happy with them. I'm not sure I'd want mudders in most normal situations. I'm guessing they're pretty loud on the highway. These A/Ts are a good balance for me. Although it's about time for a new set at $800 a pop.

[Perineum Ripper]

I was curious if it would be a little small for such a long trip, even mostly being solo.

I have thought about finding an older 4Runner and traveling around the Rockies for a couple months. Following your trip and watching YouTube has given me lots of ideas.

I think I would go with a MT on mine though, love AT but if I didn’t have a winch I would want a more aggressive tire while out traveling

[SAUTO]

A winch would be Must for me

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by SAUTO

A winch would be Must for me

A wench could be useful, too, if she can drive a stick shift.

[srvy]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

A wench could be useful, too, if she can drive a stick shift.

[BucEyedPea]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

A wench could be useful, too, if she can drive a stick shift.

Heh! Heh! My Prelude I had in Boston was a stick shift. I could handle that.

[srvy]

There is no mud tire gonna get you out of a wet ditch bank. He was sitting high centered on top that ditch bank. That guy dragged him 15 feet on his frame before he could get a bite to climb out. Winch would be a necessity on a trip like that and hope you have something to hook to.