If you are like most of us who travel to shoot and fish with our Latin American neighbors south of the Rio Grande to the tip of Argentina, you have probably been as frustrated as have I to be limited to just a few words of Spanish. Hardly enough to ask for: more shells please, where is that bonefish you are talking about, and, in exasperation, please, More beer... I sure had that problem and after a number of years of having promised myself I was going to do something about it and get serious and learn a little useful Spanish, I finally got it done.

It is easy and so much fun to do!  So, if you have had similar problems and a desire to not only sound a little more intelligent, but actually get a heck of a lot more out of the experience of a foreign shooting or fishing trip by being able to carry on a basic conversation with your guides and base camp operators, here is the program:

There is a fantastic colonial Mexican city 6,000 feet up in the Sierra Madre Mountains approximately 3 1/2 hours north of Mexico City. San Miguel de Allende (SMA) was designated by the Mexican government in the 1920's as a significant historic area to be preserved? and boy is it something!  Listed in Conde Nast as one of the top 10-12 places in the world, it is a marvelous place to visit. Perfectly maintained or restored shops and haciendas on cobble stone streets with their pastel walls is just such a visually pleasing environment for this brief, but intensive period of study. On arriving in SMA, due to extremely lucky timing, there was a bull fight to enjoy in the Plaza de Toros. And if you don't believe that this sporting event is truly a pageant (and before you declare your approval or disapproval for the event), read Ernest Hemingway's Death in the Afternoon. The following morning was the weekly home tour sponsored by the local privately supported library (bibliotheca). This is a must do? For it allows one a glimpse into 3 or 4 of the city's principal homes and creates a taste for the life style of the San Miguelanese. SMA has approximately 60,000 permanent residents of which 3,000 to 4,000 are Americans. This coupled with the extensive amount of international tourism to SMA has created an extremely sophisticated infrastructure of high quality restaurants and upper end boutiques for everything from clothing to antiques. And at the same time, all this is mixed with a very traditional Mexican market town with endless small restaurants and shops used by the locals. This rich mixture of populations provides an incredibly charming city whose storekeepers and restaurateurs speak sufficient English to allow one to truly enjoy the experience, but are surrounded by a traditional non-English speaking population giving one the opportunity to practice their Spanish language skills.

While SMA has many, many Spanish language schools and institutes, fortunately I had been advised to sign on with Warren Hardy who for many years has taught Cardgame Spanish. His classes are small and intense. Warren is an American who has taught Spanish from high school to executive level training courses. When he resided in the U.S., he frequently taught in short intensive courses for physicians working in rural health clinics where Spanish was the only language of the patients. He taught Spanish to lawyers whose clients were Spanish speaking. And he even taught Spanish to cowboys on the King Ranch in Texas. Warren is a very attractive gentleman who does a marvelous job of turning an absolute novice into a person who can make his basic wants and needs understood by Spanish speaking natives in a very short period of time.

It's a 3 hour a day, 5 days a week short course, and each day after the 3 hour formal session, it doesn't take much encouragement to go satisfy the need for a margarita, some guacamole dip and a chance to practice those new found language skills.

While my course was very basic and general, and my classmates were from tremendously varied backgrounds and had very wide ranging interests, Warren has agreed to put on a special course for Classic Sports International's friends. This course will be designed specifically for our students and will all but guarantee that at the end of 5 days, we will be able to converse with our Spanish speaking hunting and fishing guides. Warren is going to re-write his textbook and add a number of additional flash cards to his Cardgame Spanish, specially oriented toward hunting and fishing and covering the most common questions and situations arising in international travel to the destinations we all enjoy so much. We will learn how to ask questions such as:

• What time do they release the paloma?
• How big was that bonefish that I just spooked?
• Why are there so many ducks landing in the decoys?
• Do I have to shoot any more shells today?
• I cannot take any more hours on this magnificent mangrove flat. When will you stop showing me all these beautiful sunrises and sunsets?

But moreover, what we will come away with is a sense of satisfaction that we really and truly now know enough Spanish to get by pretty well and make ourselves understood and maybe even understand a little of their Spanish.  And the beauty of all this is that SMA definitely a WIFE APPROVED LOCATION. While we are in our courses, the ladies will be entertained with fantastic shopping tours, house tours, visits to spas and to nearby colonial cities. In addition, there will be a Spanish cooking school offered for those interested and we are scheduling this at a time when there will be a major Mexican cultural festival in SMA with the probable opportunity to spend an afternoon at the Plaza de Toros.