Guided Tour Snobs

There are such creatures as those who downplay and insult the fans of the guided tour. They tell us they much prefer to live "amongst the natives" because it's the way to learn about the people of another country. That doesn't quite fit into logic. Most of us haven't the funds to go live somewhere for a couple of years to "learn" it. We have two weeks on what we have saved up merely to see the wonders of the world even if it's only a half hour lecture in front of them or a stroll around their timelessness. Ordinary people like us who have travelled most of the world in small blips here there and everywhere, feel priviledged anyway, to have gone in a time when there weren't armed military about or fences and padded ropes keeping us from touchingm standing in awe or being breathing close to or walking amongst such as the rocks of Stonehenge just before the stars came out.  To hear the sound of chanting as we entered the home of the golden or jade Buddah, to touch the side of a pyramid in Egypt or in the Mexican jungles, to shudder on viewing Goya or marvel at the colour of Van Gogh or sweat in the moist heat of Bali or drink true Turkish coffee is only a moment perhaps, but something that lasts forever in one's memory. The guides who lead their bunch of behatted or flag bearing customers are varied. Some are dreadful such as the woman who sat at the front of a tour bus reading the tour from a book but who looked stupendous with three foot long blond hair, skinny skirts and sun glasses that earmed her huge tips by elderly gawking males. My favorite guide was a little Mexican professor whose ancient Chevrolet drove us to the interior mountains of that country like a pro, and who would go anywhere our maps revealed. Even to the tiny hotels in those jungles' ads that had open holes in the walls as AC and a hose in the corner as showers, were tolerable because of this small, poorly beshirted man's love of his country.  A friend who went to Italy and slept for a year on beaches and barns, and bragged about her more "personal experiences" in travel as opposed to ours. She she never did get to see the treasures of the Vatican because they all were booked up by horrible people like us. We got only, from the world, briefly but perfectly, sensory pictures that remain for savouring today. No apologies.