DoughnutANZ
Ka whati te tai ka kai te tōreapango
- Time of past OR future Camino
- 2019, 2023, 2024, 2025, 2026, 2027 & 2028.
The topic of how a pilgrim can reliably and quickly communicate with albergue owners comes up often on this forum. The answers get entangled with language and customs and so there are many "true" answers. I am indebted to @kirkie for her post today about "truth" for reminding me of how one truth can differ from another truth.
Anyway, on the surface the obvious way for a pilgrim to communicate reliably and quickly with an albergue owner is to talk to them (probably via the phone) but many pilgrims on this forum are monolingual English speakers and most albergue owners are Spanish speaking (although some are multilingual and speak English). Even when the pilgrim can speak some Spanish, telephone conversations can be especially difficult to understand because of a lack of bandwidth.
In addition, many albergues are small with limited staff and most do not have dedicated people to answer the phone at any time that a pilgrim might call.
Lastly, telephone conversations are verbal and so even when a pilgrim speaks with an albergue owner and makes a reservation there is a chance that this does not get written down by the albergue owner, if, for example, they are busy and they often are busy.
Written communications would be more reliable in these cases, for both parties.
One obvious written method is to send an email but many albergue owners are not particularly technology literate and even when an albergue publishes an email address often reading and replying to emails seems to get done last and in some cases doesn't get done for days and even weeks. This is partly because of how email works but this longer discussion is left for now.
Like most of us, most albergue owners have smart phones these days and so there are two other popular written methods of communication using these phones, SMS texts and specialised communication apps.
SMS texts are slightly more reliable than email, provided that the pilgrim has a mobile phone number for the albergue (as opposed to a landline phone number).
The most reliable, however, is using a popular smart phone communication app. There are a number of these apps but in Europe the three top apps are Whatsapp, Signal and Telegram. In Spain, the standout of these three is Whatsapp and almost every albergue owner will have a WhatsApp "phone" number.
WhatsApp is almost always the most reliable and quickest way to communicate with an albergue owner. Even if they are away from their check-in desk they will have their smart phone on them and Whatsapp will notify them that they have a message. Language issues can usually be dealt with by using a translation app on your phone and it is always polite to translate your message into Spanish even if you also include the English text.
I don't use WhatsApp myself (I use Signal) but I understand that the interface is similar to Signal (and behind the scenes Whatsapp uses the Signal protocol). One perculularity with Whatsapp is that you need to add the albergue phone number to your contacts before you can send them a WhatsApp message.
Like the other two already mentioned alternatives, WhatsApp can also be used to make "free" voice and video calls and so it can be a useful app to have on your phone anyway. It (like Signal but not like Telegram) allows your messages, voice and video calls to be encrypted for the entire distance between your phone and the other phone PROVIDED THAT YOU HAVE SET THIS UP.
For some people including me, WhatsApp has an issue. It is owned by Facebook/Meta and some information is shared with the parent company. This is an issue for people who want secure communications but should not worry most pilgrims who are only really interested in using it to make reservations.
Postscript:
In another, since closed, thread I posted a link to a Reddit article that showed Signal to be the most popular communication app in Spain. The article is "true" but it is dated twelve months ago and at that time WhatsApp was getting lots of bad publicity about it sharing confidential information (see: https://amp.theguardian.com/technol...me-to-leave-whatsapp-and-is-signal-the-answer) and lots of people were switching to other apps and at the time Signal was top.
Since then, things have settled and Signal is currently sitting at number 28 according to one app popularity site, see: https://appfigures.com/top-apps/google-play/spain/communication
As @kirkie said and I mentioned at the top, there is often more than one truth. However, appfigures.com doesn't say how they calculate popularity. Is it all time total downloads or is it recent downloads?
Anyway, when wanting to reliably and quickly communicate with an albergue owner, use WhatsApp.
Anyway, on the surface the obvious way for a pilgrim to communicate reliably and quickly with an albergue owner is to talk to them (probably via the phone) but many pilgrims on this forum are monolingual English speakers and most albergue owners are Spanish speaking (although some are multilingual and speak English). Even when the pilgrim can speak some Spanish, telephone conversations can be especially difficult to understand because of a lack of bandwidth.
In addition, many albergues are small with limited staff and most do not have dedicated people to answer the phone at any time that a pilgrim might call.
Lastly, telephone conversations are verbal and so even when a pilgrim speaks with an albergue owner and makes a reservation there is a chance that this does not get written down by the albergue owner, if, for example, they are busy and they often are busy.
Written communications would be more reliable in these cases, for both parties.
One obvious written method is to send an email but many albergue owners are not particularly technology literate and even when an albergue publishes an email address often reading and replying to emails seems to get done last and in some cases doesn't get done for days and even weeks. This is partly because of how email works but this longer discussion is left for now.
Like most of us, most albergue owners have smart phones these days and so there are two other popular written methods of communication using these phones, SMS texts and specialised communication apps.
SMS texts are slightly more reliable than email, provided that the pilgrim has a mobile phone number for the albergue (as opposed to a landline phone number).
The most reliable, however, is using a popular smart phone communication app. There are a number of these apps but in Europe the three top apps are Whatsapp, Signal and Telegram. In Spain, the standout of these three is Whatsapp and almost every albergue owner will have a WhatsApp "phone" number.
WhatsApp is almost always the most reliable and quickest way to communicate with an albergue owner. Even if they are away from their check-in desk they will have their smart phone on them and Whatsapp will notify them that they have a message. Language issues can usually be dealt with by using a translation app on your phone and it is always polite to translate your message into Spanish even if you also include the English text.
I don't use WhatsApp myself (I use Signal) but I understand that the interface is similar to Signal (and behind the scenes Whatsapp uses the Signal protocol). One perculularity with Whatsapp is that you need to add the albergue phone number to your contacts before you can send them a WhatsApp message.
Like the other two already mentioned alternatives, WhatsApp can also be used to make "free" voice and video calls and so it can be a useful app to have on your phone anyway. It (like Signal but not like Telegram) allows your messages, voice and video calls to be encrypted for the entire distance between your phone and the other phone PROVIDED THAT YOU HAVE SET THIS UP.
For some people including me, WhatsApp has an issue. It is owned by Facebook/Meta and some information is shared with the parent company. This is an issue for people who want secure communications but should not worry most pilgrims who are only really interested in using it to make reservations.
Postscript:
In another, since closed, thread I posted a link to a Reddit article that showed Signal to be the most popular communication app in Spain. The article is "true" but it is dated twelve months ago and at that time WhatsApp was getting lots of bad publicity about it sharing confidential information (see: https://amp.theguardian.com/technol...me-to-leave-whatsapp-and-is-signal-the-answer) and lots of people were switching to other apps and at the time Signal was top.
Since then, things have settled and Signal is currently sitting at number 28 according to one app popularity site, see: https://appfigures.com/top-apps/google-play/spain/communication
As @kirkie said and I mentioned at the top, there is often more than one truth. However, appfigures.com doesn't say how they calculate popularity. Is it all time total downloads or is it recent downloads?
Anyway, when wanting to reliably and quickly communicate with an albergue owner, use WhatsApp.
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