Learn Spanish to Make Yourself Misunderstood Part II

“No parlo Espagnole”. Bus journeys in South America tend to be long and arduous, and none more so than in Bolivia, where I was beginning to learn Spanish. In one trip to Tupiza (near where Butch Cassidy and the Sundance supposedly died, Western fans) the bus stopped in the middle of night. If you can imagine one of those precarious roads which wind around a mountain and are ever so slightly wider than a bus then you are on the right track. In the middle of the road in front of us a huge mudslide had blocked the road in one of the most remote parts of the entire road. As the words, “are we with the AA or the RAC?” were about to leave my mouth I saw the driver whip a couple of shovels out of the bus and realised that between the 15 or so passengers we were on our own. After a few long hours of shovelling under a blazing sun with no water and only a couple of fluff covered biscuits I had found at the bottom of my rucksack we were almost through. Incredibly, no help had arrived but someone who seemed to be a TV reporter appeared from who knows where with a small camera. As I was in no state to speak to someone, and fearing that he spoke some English, I put on my best Italian accent (which isn’t very good) and said “No parlo Espagnole” when he shoved his microphone in my face. I still don’t know if it ever made it onto the local evening news but I like to think so and that some local Tupizeños commented that the Italian with the strange accent should learn Spanish soon.