In the nearly two years I have lived in Nepal, I have met very few Nepalese who could speak Spanish. It is during my sporadic forays into its mountains that I have had the most opportunities to hear our language in the mouths of locals.
“Elementary, my dear Watson,” someone reading this might say, because the Himalayan mountain range attracts thousands of tourists every year. And many from the Hispanic world… “who don’t speak English.” The person who completes the sentence is the Spaniard Álvaro Quintana, an expert and organizer of itineraries and tours for the InspireU Adventures agency. As this young man from Barcelona, who has been living in Nepal for almost a decade, explains to us, many Spanish-speaking tourists demanded to have a local mountain guide who spoke our language fluently. That is why your agency and many others have been offering this service for several years now. It is also the reason why many Nepalese consider learning Spanish as a good opportunity.
It was Quintana himself who was tasked with training Spanish-speaking guides at Kathmandu University for more than two years. It was almost by chance and following the earthquake that devastated the country in 2015. “The opportunity to become a teacher came about because I had an ELE degree. [profesor de español] and he was already living in Kathmandu. After the earthquake, the professor who was there at the time left his position and returned to Spain. I was offered to replace him and I said yes,” Quintana explains.
There he was able to discover some of the concerns that drive a Nepalese to learn Spanish. Some did it out of simple curiosity, others because they were planning to travel to the United States and Latin America and a third group because they wanted to become a Spanish-speaking cultural or mountain guide. Incentives? “He charges more than twice as much as an English-speaking guide, there is not much competition and he has a future,” replies the Catalan. Although the resources available to study formally and academically are scarce, there is a growing interest in this language. This is reflected in the article “Teaching ELE in Nepal, a cultural challenge”, published in the magazine Atlas de ELE in 2022.
According to Quintana, this recent curiosity “has a lot to do with football, Mexican cuisine, Argentine tango, the tomatina, reggaeton.” Continuing with this last point, we could say that Spanish in Nepal is advancing “slowly,” like the song by Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee.
But let’s not stray from the main course of this column. Didn’t someone tell at the beginning some story about local guides who take Spanish-speaking tourists to the roof of the world?
Tranquility! “Step by step, gentle, gentle.” We continued to exploit the musical theme which, by the way, was a real hit that could be heard in any street stall in Kathmandu. Quintana teamed up with one of his former students, Shaligram Bhattarai, who owns his own local agency, Eco Himalaya treks. Bhattarai, in addition to being a businessman, has been working as a Spanish-speaking mountain guide for 16 years.
“I started studying the language in 2007, encouraged by a friend who assured me that it would be easier to find a job that way, and time has proven him right. In addition, I really like Spanish. In general, Spanish speakers are very open and happy people. It is a pleasure to work with people from Spain and Latin America,” he says. Archiletters.
Bhattarai shares with us the basic recipe for being a good guide: “In the mountains, it is important to know the vocabulary to explain the conditions of each stage, the accommodation, the meals, as well as to satisfy cultural curiosities.”
The Nepalese guide explains to us that at the beginning, it was very difficult for him to distinguish the different meanings of the same word: “for example, in Latin America, the verb coger is used very differently from the one used in Spain. Little by little, I think I’m getting there.
He also admits to some bad moments he has experienced because he did not understand some tourists well. “I remember a couple from Barcelona asked me if I had extra blankets. I misunderstood them and went straight to the dining room to get apples. “At the time, I did not know the difference between blankets and apples.”
Another time when he was very embarrassed was in a nature park known for its little red birds. “I told the tourists that they should watch out for the pajeros rather than the birds. They laughed a lot. Now, with time, it is also a funny anecdote for me.” For Bhattarai, this regular interaction with Spanish-speaking tourists helps him improve his Spanish: “This job allows me to expand my vocabulary almost unconsciously, so I am grateful and I do not plan to leave this sector.”
