I’m back in Manaus now after three weeks on a river boat in the forest. We spent about a week in the Deni lands and a lot of time traveling. During that time we stared out at the forest, watched dolphins, had a few beers and I worked on my Portuguese.

I came to Brazil knowing about two words of Portuguese and promptly set about trying to learn as much as I could as quickly as I could. I took some lessons in Manaus, studied my book and tried out my new vocabulary on the locals, who speak no English, so I really had no choice in the matter anyway.

Many of the Greenpeace team and crew on our river boat spoke no English, so they were great teachers, and those that did speak English helped me with more complicated issues of grammar.

So one night, while Agnaldo was helping me from my Portuguese lessons book I made and interesting discovery and recalled an amusing incident at a bakery in Manaus before we left.

I had confidently walked into the supermarket and up to the woman behind the bread counter and said “Eu querro um paõ grande, por favor” – I want a large loaf of bread please”

Well it is all in the pronunciation.

Paõ should be pronounced through the nose with an open “O” at the end. If you pronounce it with a closed “O” it comes out sounding like “pow”, which in Portuguese, is slang for penis.

Of course I didn’t know this when I went to the bakery, I only discovered it later in my lessons on the boat, but it certainly does explain why the woman behind the counter blushed and giggled when I went up to her and said “I want a large dick”.

However, it may come in handy some other time :)