Sauce for the goose
A detail on the facade of the Governor's Palace at Uxmal, a Mayan ruin in Yucatan province. Photography by Diana Ricci
Yesterday, the shoe dropped from the other foot. You may recall that I recently played fast and loose with tour guides (see this column, Behold A Flock Of Tourists). Well, as the saying goes, today I resemble those remarks.
For a few weeks now, I have been offering an "Orientation To Oaxaca" class at the English language Library, in which I attempt to pass on whatever I think I know about life here, that seems to me to be relevant to each attendee's plans. Last week, I recommended a tour down the part of the Oaxaca valley that includes the bustling regional market town of Ocotlan de Morelos. The trio who were attending allowed as how that sounded like a nice trip, and wondered how long it would take. I opined eight hours, more or less. They asked me what would it take to get me to be their guide? I told them, and with a nod of their heads, I moved from the rank of amateur to that of professional (once you cross the line, you can never claim amateur status again, except maybe in politics); from insouciant sniper to responsible person in charge.
Ocotlan is the home of Rodolfo Morales (See this column Getting and Giving Back, and he has lavished funds and attention on it. Most of the sites we visited (the church, the ex-convento, the municipal center, the house he restored and stocked with antiques) were endowed by Fundación Rodolfo Morales and/or decorated with his work. Between Ocotlan and Oaxaca, there are centers of black pottery, whimsically painted wooden animals, and clay figures decorated with clay animals, birds and fruit, and painted with bright primary colors. A lot to see, to touch, to smell and taste: a busy, busy day.
Yesterday, at 7:15 a.m., we met at the train station. First, a side trip to a small mining town beyond Ocotlan: 3 hours (I had estimated 2). Then, it turns out that they LOVE old churches and convents: an hour over estimate. At this point it was 12:30, and we were two hours "behind". Time to hit the Friday market, one of the better ones in our area. The lone male chuckled. "Guess you girls will have to cut down on your shopping". Not a reaction. Not a glance, not a blink of a single eye, not a twitch of an eyebrow. Buyer's deafness: selective, quickly fading, total BLOCKQUOTEage of the audial canal. I suppose they thought it preferable to sending him to his room. Nonetheless, we plunge into - and out of - the market in under an hour. "Plunge", by the way, is an apt word. Anyone who has ever tried to move through a crowded Mexican country market understands how the salmon feels fighting its way up stream. Next, an hour walking to - and through - Morales' house, and another visiting the three Aguilar sisters at their ceramic workshops, and it was lunch time.
Struggling up out of our chairs in the "family kitchen" restaurant we ate in, we went in search of the collectivo stand where taxi-sized public transit rests before it departs for our next destination. By now it was 3:30 (our eight hours are up), and the beginning of rush hour for folks leaving the Friday market. After twice getting elbowed out of the way by a gang of street-fighters dressed as four-foot high Zapotec women in aprons, we threw in the towel and went in search of a bus back to Oaxaca.
By the time we got home at 4:30, I had reached the following conclusions: everyone in a tour group has a secret hidden agenda which they reveal, piece by piece, during the adventure; the guide is responsible, no matter the cause; it's no more fun being glared at by individual tourists, than it was to put up with some guide's chatter when I used to be the glarer; it's a rare guide who is overpaid, and I was not one of them.
"Material circumstances", said the venerable Chairman Mao, "dictate consciousness". It is certainly true that my respect for tour guides has changed, now that I have tried my hand at it. I used to see all tour guides as vapid, cunning and pretending to knowledge they didn't have. Now I only see some of them that way.
If you have comments or suggestions for Stan, you can contact him at:
http://www.realoaxaca.com/email-realoaxaca.html
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