How does one communicate on the Camino? Certainly, English is a very useful language. However, in many of the rural areas the residents or proprietors of the shops may not speak English. So, some Spanish is very helpful.

Now, many of our fellow Peregrinos are from other countries. How do you speak to them? There are french, German, Italian, Austrian, dutch, Brazilians, etc.  You really have no idea concerning which is the appropriate language to simply say,  “hi”. The solution? Say,  “Buen Camino” (the official greeting), then say “good morning”, or some such English expression to test the English speaking waters.

That doesn’t always work. We have needed to carry on short conversations in french (very difficult). For example, yesterday 2 women showed up at the Casa Rural who spoke only french and thought they had a reservation there.  The host was not there and it was clear there were no more rooms available. Fortunately, we had the Internet, so we used Google translate (Diane’s idea) to speak to them and then Bill called the host (who didn’t speak french and only a little English) to negotiate a solution. After 10 or 15 minutes, the French women had a room (elsewhere) and all was happy.

Back to languages: While Germans usually seem to speak several languages, including English, Austrians (based on our limited sampling of 2), are less polyglots. Bill had to break out his very rusty German to attempt communications with these 2 (not pretty).

Really the most universal language is a smile and patience. It really does work.