I have a confession.

I always write about how you can travel, how it’s more about overcoming our comfort-zone limits than actually figuring out how to travel.

But I gotta tell you.

It’s hard when you don’t speak the language.

Granted, it adds a bit of a fun twist as life becomes a constant game of charades, but traveling is definitely more intimidating and difficult when you look someone in the eye and can’t ask them a question.

…Smiles are universal, right?

But I concede on that point.

Currently in Brazil, which everyone says Portuguese and Spanish are similar and that you can speak one and they’ll speak the other and you’ll get by.

Which is kind of true. But it’s still a different language.

For instance, I was asking directions and didn’t understand a lick of what the lady was saying to me. She turns to her friend and somehow I understood the joke she made when she said “this lady isn’t understanding anything I’m saying.” I laughed with her, also laughing that I was able to understand the unimportant part but couldn’t catch the important part at all. Apparently the word “understand” is pretty similar between languages.

So when I write about travel, I have a fresh realization that much of my travels are easier for me because I speak Spanish.

So the moral of the story here is either… learn another language, or maybe just realize that there is an extra barrier. My cousin travels all the time to countries she doesn’t know and says she get’s by just fine.

But it’s helpful to realize it’s a big thing to remember.

But still possible, we made it fine. We even got in trouble with the border police for crossing the border illegally twice and managed to find the police station and pay our fines, all in Portuguese (or some sort of weird English/Spanish/Portuguese accent blend, my friend Noemi somehow could magically start speaking Portuguese occasionally.) It usually all works out.