Monthly Archives: May 2011

    “Tourism is often distorted and skewed in favour of the (relative) rich and powerful, whose interests control the destiny of many local communities as well as exerting a pervasive symbolic influence over toured cultures and ways of life” … Continue reading →

We pulled up in our boat from the lagoon to the beach at Sian Ka’an.  In a roped off area, flocks of terns were nesting.  Their busy chatter filled the air.  Our guide, Aldo, pointed to a pelican flying over … Continue reading →

I have a few final thoughts on the Yucatan’s “eco” status that will best be articulated by answering some of the questions I asked in my first post.  I should say quickly that the Yucatan promotional literature does not necessarily … Continue reading →

1.  My observations of the countryside, which are, granted, confined almost entirely to what I could see from the car window (and a good swathe from the plane window on the way in), did not reveal much agriculture to begin … Continue reading →

Our last day proved to be one of our most memorable, taking us 15 kilometers south of Tulum along the coastline and into one of Mexico’s twelve UNESCO-sanctioned “biosphere reserves” (the most stringent category of land protection in the country, … Continue reading →

We had an amazing trip through a variety of wetland habitats and ancient Maya ruins in the biosphere of Sian Ka’an. It was expensive and hard to get to, but well worth the trip in so many ways. Our tour … Continue reading →

In a very interesting comparative experience to our time at Kilometer 50 Café in the little town of Jose Maria Morelos, in the much larger, beachside, entirely tourist-oriented city of Tulum we stumbled upon something we did not expect to … Continue reading →

In our reading of Wearing, Stevenson and Young’s chapter “Encountering the Other”  from Tourist Cultures:  Identity, Place and the Traveller (Sage, 2010), the authors remind us that “in developing nations the indigenous inhabitants are often used as servants by the … Continue reading →

Tulum is the only archaeological site that I have visited where tourists walk around with bare feet.  Here the beach is part of the archaeological zone; a swim is part of the tour.