The Tale of Four Tour Guides

Every so often during our Caribbean cruise adventure, the ship docked, and we had the opportunity to explore new locales.  We quickly rejected snorkeling, diving or zip lining as possibilities, settling instead for guided tours of our shore excursions.

 “Do you know who I am?” our guide asked as we boarded our Conch Train for a tour of Key West.

Was this a trick question? He was wearing a bright yellow name tag. “You’re Bob,” I answered, confidently.  

“Engineer Bob” he corrected me.  

When he heard we were from Pittsburgh, he excitedly produced a coconut that was painted to look like a Steelers football.  I realized that no matter how far I traveled from home, quirky Steelers paraphernalia would follow me.

Bob was not from Pittsburgh, he explained, but his wife and he got married at Shadyside Presbyterian Church.  He could have been from Pittsburgh, though – Bob was sort of an every-American. It wouldn’t have surprised me if he had a collection of “football coconuts” representing every NFL team stashed away to impress the tourists.  He was an ordinary, average, animated guy, who really loved looking at and talking about Key West, and who prided himself on being the best damn Conch Train tour guide in the city.
  

Key West is an utterly charming beach town, home of Ernest Hemingway, Jimmy Buffet and the southernmost point of the United States.  My favorite fun carry-away fact from Key West was that shipwrecking had been a huge industry there when ships wrecked routinely on the coral reefs off the coast.  Divers were employed to recover whatever loot they could from the wrecked ships.  We also visited the Aquarium (in lieu of snorkeling), but there were lots of interesting things we didn’t have the time to fully explore there.

Our second stop was Cozumel, Mexico, home of the most breathtakingly beautiful teal and royal blue water – the likes of which I had never seen.  I could have spent the day just admiring the water, but we had a shore excursion to the Mayan Ruins of Tulum scheduled.  After a ferry boat ride to the main land, we were greeted by Tito, our faithful tour guide.

On our bus trip to the Ruins, Tito couldn’t say enough nice things about the Mayans.  They were the most advanced, intelligent civilization to have ever graced the earth – exceptional scientists, engineers, doctors, astronomers.  They had it all going on.  No one knew where they came from, and Tito implied that the theory that they were aliens from another planet was the only plausible explanation.
  

So what happened?  The Spaniards, that’s what.  According to Tito, the Spaniards were the root of all the evil visited upon the Mayans, and all of Mexico, for that matter.  They killed off Mayans and brought disease to the land.  At one point, I think Tito blamed the Spaniards for the fact that there was no welfare system in Mexico today. Tito also explained that there were Mayans living in Mexico today despite the Spaniards’ best efforts to destroy them.

Tito was also quite the salesman. He tried to sell us a cartouche, a necklace that every Mayan child receives at birth, with their name in silver Mayan symbols on one piece of obsidian, and the name of their protector on another.  He tried to sell us dinner for the bus trip back.  He tried to sell us on the fact that he was a Mayan.

At the ruins we learned more about the Mayans, and their shamans, and we learned that it was damn hot in Mexico –100 degrees according to Tito.  In our free time, we chose to explore a shady spot under some trees.

Ignacio, our Tour Guide for our final shore excursion to South Beach in Miami, was a soft spoken man with a great mane of gray hair, Paul Newman-blue eyes, and an undefinable Hispanic accent.  He was a gentleman among tour guides. He had a system for organizing our luggage - he boasted that in 31 years on the job he had never misplaced a suitcase.  He provided a thoughtful and informative overview of the history of the city, gave restaurant recommendations, and offered helpful tips for your tour.

Ignacio was kind enough to tell us about himself as people often inquired about his accent.  He was born in Florida, but grew up in Argentina.  As a young adult he was a bit of a nomad, traveling and living in Europe.  In 1979 while visiting Miami, he met his wife, and he had been there ever since.

While exploring South Beach on foot, we stumbled upon the Jewish Museum of Miama, where we found Sylvia Herman, a perfectly coiffed, impeccably dressed octogenarian who was a docent at the Museum. She was delighted to hear that we were from Pittsburgh, because she had grown up in Squirrel Hill, just down the road from my hometown of Swissvale.  Although she moved to Florida before I was born, we still found lots to share about the old neighborhoods.  She provided a brief but very interesting tour of the Museum which chronicled the Jewish experience in Miami.

Back on the bus, Ignacio shared some wisdom about airport travel with us.  He told us to smile at the security folks as we went through all the clearances.  After all, they have a hard time of it, and it can make a huge difference to their day and our treatment.

As Ignacio was distributing our luggage, he told us to call ahead next time we were in town and he would take us out to dinner.  We all laughed, but honestly that would be okay with us.  Ignacio was definitely the kind of guy you might like to have dinner with.