One of the main reasons for choosing Latin America for our travels was to improve our Spanish. We found a Spanish school whereby we can travel and learn at the same time.
On Sunday evening we had our introductory talk for the Spanish school. Our teacher, Sergio, had been detained by another engagement so it came to Camila, who was assisting us for the week, to give the introduction. After a brief intro she took each of us in turn for a one to one Spanish oral test. I was a little nervous and it didn’t help that the first question she asked me was “Que has hecho en Panamá?”. This uses the preterito perfecto tense which is not one that I’ve used before. I managed to answer some more questions but I didn’t come away feeling confident. Alex seemed to fare better, but her Spanish is better than mine so I wasn’t surprised.
Once everyone had been tested and a few stragglers had arrived we all went out to dinner to a restaurant that our guide and teacher Sergio (who had now arrived) recommended. It turned out to be El Trapiche, the same place we’d been the previous night!
Over dinner we chatted to Sergio in Spanish and got to know some of our course mates who we’d be spending the next four weeks with. Our group of ten is pretty varied with nearly a 40 year age gap between the youngest and oldest member. We’re also very international with Switzerland, Norway, Germany, Denmark, Belgium, Canada, and even Iceland represented! It’s a female dominated group with only 3 men to 7 women, but we were very happy to see that we’re not the oldest! Since both Alex and I normally work with young teams and have friends 30 years older, we’re just as happy talking to the 19 year old as we are the 57 year old and we’re finding that we get along with everyone. Although the group is very diverse in terms of backgrounds and interests, we share an interest in learning Spanish and travelling, which is enough to ensure there are never any lulls in conversation.
Back at our first dinner, while chatting to our teacher Sergio he seemed pleasantly surprised with our Spanish ability. We walked home from the restaurant as a group and got an early night ready for our 8am Spanish lesson on the first day!
The next morning we had breakfast and went upstairs to two rooms in the hostel which had been hastily converted to classrooms. It quickly emerged that we’d been split into two groups, and I expected to be in the lower one with Alex in the more advanced one. After mistakenly sending Alex to the other classroom, I was pleasantly surprised to find that we’d both been placed in the advanced class with 6 of us in this class and 4 in the other.
Sergio our guide and teacher is a Panamanian who speaks to us clearly and obviously paces himself to speak at a level where we all understand him. Our first day of lessons was essentially revision for both Alex and I, but it helped to cement our knowledge of grammatical structures and remind us of concepts that we haven’t studied for nearly 10 years. Sergio is fantastic at clearly explaining concepts, and after 4 hours I already felt like I was improving. Our group of 6 feels fairly even. Alex and I have some of the best vocabulary, but our speaking is behind some of the others. Our good vocabulary is particularly useful because we learnt it in Ecuador, so we have at our disposal words like tiburon (shark) and hamaca (hammock) that you might not otherwise use! Others have excellent speaking abilities, but not as wide a vocabulary. One member has a really good knowledge of the grammatical structure but struggles with speaking and oral comprehension. What I really like is that we all help each other to find a missing word or express a concept in Spanish with our limited vocabulary.
Our first afternoon included a tour of Casco Viejo, the old town, conducted by our guide, entirely in Spanish of course. We finished the tour with drinks in a rooftop bar with incredible views over the whole city as the sun set over the hills.
Watching some of the girls take photos is a source of continual amusement. As a generation that grew up with social media they have a million poses, pouts and ways to find the perfect picture. Our Icelandic class member Berglin in particular is amazing to watch as she pulls faces for the camera. None of this is a judgement on them however, talk to Berglin for five minutes and you quickly realise that she is fiercely intelligent, politically informed and studying to be a lawyer, completing assignments in the evenings all while attending the Spanish school in the daytime.
The first day set the rhythm for the week with each day featuring lessons from 8-12 with an afternoon activity.
By Tuesday afternoon I was once again comfortable writing paragraphs of Spanish and had learnt the preterite perfecto so I could now answer the question “que has hecho?”
Tuesday afternoon’s activity was a visit to a canal and museum. Not just any canal, the Panamá Canal. The trip started with a 45 minute video about the canal narrated by Morgan Freeman, followed by a visit to a viewing platform where we watched a large tanker transit the Miraflores locks. As we watched, a narrator explained the steps of the process and repeatedly confirmed that the Panama canal employs 10,000 Panamanian’s and not a single person from China.
Wednesday’s classes once again reminded us of us some concepts that Sergio had noticed we were often mistaking and allowed us to practice what we’d learned in the last few days. I really love how a lot of the class is spent just talking as a group in Spanish and the size of the class (6 vs 2) feels less intense than Ecuador, but still feels like I’m learning a lot!
Wednesday afternoon was a free afternoon. Most of the girls decided to go to the mall but just before they left, Laura asked us what we were planning to do. I answered that we were planning to visit the Parque Metropolitano, which is less of a park and more of a jungle on the edge of the city. I could tell that Laura was less interested in the idea of spending the afternoon in a mall, so I told her to reach out if she fancied joining us if she got bored.
We had a slow lunch and got ready to leave, wanting to wait until it was a little less hot before going walking, Laura had messaged to ask if she could join us. We picked her up on the way and headed to the park.
Laura is a 20 year old student from Denmark. She’s on her gap year and is travelling alone until her boyfriend joins her in March. She immediately reminds me of the Dutch girls that we travelled with for 3 months in South America. She could be our daughter, although to preserve my ego I’m trying to think of her more like a little sister. Despite the age gap it feels like there is more in common between us than some of the others.
Laura joined us for the walk and was more than happy traipsing through the forest with us in her flip flops. During the walk we saw some capybara, a rather odd looking South American rodent. On the way down from the highest point we saw a sloth, a chance find as they move so slowly, and as far as I remember the first sloth either of us have seen in the wild.
After the park we headed back to the hostel for the last activity of the day, a dance class. I’ll start by saying that I am not a natural dancer. Alex is better than me but doesn’t really like to be led. We don’t make great dance partners, but we do have fun along the way and make up for a lack of talent with enthusiasm. The dance class was an hour and taught us the basic steps of salsa, bachatta, and merengue.
There was a shortage of men for the dance class so we roped in some of the guys staying in the hostel. One partnered with Laura, and it turned out that both of them had previously done some salsa, so we watched while they spun each other around. The class ended with much laughter and some accidental foot stepping, but I didn’t disgrace myself too much!
This week we’ve mostly been eating at our hostel as we haven’t really wanted to eat the volume of a full restaurant meal, so it’s felt like a relatively healthy week with lots of walking and not too much eating or drinking.
Classes this week ended on Wednesday as Thursday and Friday featured a trip to the San Blas Islands which we’ll cover in the next post.
So far we’re having a great time, our Spanish is improving, I’m keeping up with Alex and the class, and we have a lovely group on the travelling class who I’m looking forward to spending the next month with.
