Day 6: Portuspanrench
Today started out later than I hoped (the place I stayed didn’t offer breakfast until 0800) and was very cloudy and breezy. I’m from Portland though and I know rain clouds, and these weren’t rain clouds.
Not rain clouds
They were rain clouds.
Dammit
The trail was still pretty great though and followed the coast for the first few miles.
It then headed a little inland and was split between roadside path and boardwalk. I met a wonderful mother and son from Australia (I’ve noticed the Aussies make up a large part of the folks I’m seeing out here) and we shared the walk for a couple of hours chatting about travel and life in general. Time flew by. I even met a horse.
His name is Sergio
We then parted ways at our destination town and they headed off to their hotel while I headed up into the hills for my accommodation.
How cool is that driveway?
So here’s where it got interesting. Up to this point I’ve been speaking what I call “Portuspanrench”. I’ve learned some Portuguese phrases on our previous trips here and I tried to pick up a few more on the plane over. To complicate this, I’ve been taking Duolingo Spanish lessons for over two months. Add in the fact I had 5 years of French and was borderline fluent in my teens and you’ve got the perfect conditions for a horrendous mash up of all three languages. And that’s what I’ve been speaking since my arrival. I’ve mainly been mixing Portuguese and Spanish together and then apologizing while still managing to be understood. It’s the instances where I’ve also busted out some French that it’s become a true Frankenlanguage that no one understands but everyone knows is unnatural and feels violating. When I arrived at my rural hotel (part of a working farm/ranch!) the lady who greeted me spoke virtually no English. As we spoke I blurted out some Portuspanrench with the expected results, polite smiling with zero comprehension. Then she poured me some tea and we sat down on the steps (me still in my pack at this point) as her dogs came over to say hello. I told her, “Tu perro es muy lindo”. She laughed and agreed. Holy shit, she understood me! As we sat I realized that if I slowed down and wasn’t panicked I could put a Spanish sentence together and we could communicate. I learned about when breakfast was served and picked a time for it (the earliest is 0900 but I’m in no rush tomorrow), I found out that I could get a ride to town for dinner and I got a tour of the communal rooms and some of the grounds. I understood about 30% of what she was saying as we chatted but when she saw I was confused and slowed down I got about 50%. Now the fact that she could understand me doesn’t imply my Spanish was good. I’m certain it wasn’t but it was enough that we could communicate and that made me happy.
I’m going to try speaking more Spanish for the rest of the trip and I’m definitely going to keep up with the lessons and maybe try and find someplace I could practice speaking it when I get home. Today might have been the end of my Portuspanrench assault on Portugal and Spain. Now I’m off to find a donkey that I can hear but haven’t seen yet. That’s burro/burra for those of you not as fluent in Espanol as I am.
Muy lindo perro
Today’s fit. I believe the kids would say it’s fire. Slay Glenn, slay.
