Felipe
Veteran Member
A question....what do you do when somebody asks you for the right direction in the Camino? That happens sometimes to me...I guess that people suppose that wisdom comes with age, although as you know, this is not necessarily true.
I always study thoroughly maps and guides, even browse Google Maps, and I am familiar with Camino signposting in Spain and France (they are not the same, and the first time this is not so obvious). And I usually try to be helpful and give indications when I can, but I am sometimes worried. If I choose a wrong path, this is just me...but to take responsibility for others choices is somewhat unnerving.
My last time I adopted a kind of "caveat", as in "Well, I think this is the right way, but this is just my opinion. It is up to you to follow me or not". The result was not the best: the couple of Dutch pilgrims that had asked me for directions gave me a very odd look (or maybe it was because I was trying to say this in French, and I am not very good with tricky subjunctive verbs).
The easier solution, obviously, would be to say: “I don’t know, ask somebody else”, but this does not seem as the proper friendly Camino answer, especially when fellow walkers can see that I am walking in a (apparently) confident way, and actually there is nobody else in sight.
What do you do in these cases?
I always study thoroughly maps and guides, even browse Google Maps, and I am familiar with Camino signposting in Spain and France (they are not the same, and the first time this is not so obvious). And I usually try to be helpful and give indications when I can, but I am sometimes worried. If I choose a wrong path, this is just me...but to take responsibility for others choices is somewhat unnerving.
My last time I adopted a kind of "caveat", as in "Well, I think this is the right way, but this is just my opinion. It is up to you to follow me or not". The result was not the best: the couple of Dutch pilgrims that had asked me for directions gave me a very odd look (or maybe it was because I was trying to say this in French, and I am not very good with tricky subjunctive verbs).
The easier solution, obviously, would be to say: “I don’t know, ask somebody else”, but this does not seem as the proper friendly Camino answer, especially when fellow walkers can see that I am walking in a (apparently) confident way, and actually there is nobody else in sight.
What do you do in these cases?