She was hurting, but not complaining. Initially she was apologetic about inconveniencing the rest of the group. The lodge manager, Roberto, drove her and me to a local hospital where they confirmed that the ankle was broken, and put on a splint. The patient was impressed and touched at the local doctor's (a woman) attentiveness and care albeit in a hospital with more primitive equipment than she was used to. She was amazed when they charged her nothing. (Health services are free in Mexico, and in this case they had no routine for charging tourists).
We left the patient at Sierra Lodge, still apologizing for the trouble she was causing, despite the fact that her trip was effectively spoiled. We would continue to El Fuerte, and pick her up on the way back. Which is what we did, bringing a walker I had purchased for her. By now however, her attitude had changed. Missing out on the rest of the trip, confined to the lodge and unable to walk more than a few yards, she was ready prey for a comment by someone in another tour group that the tour leader should never have let her stray off on her own.
She confronted me with this, and I pointed out that my tours were for independent-minded persons, and that on the last trip two 80-year olds had managed the hike perfectly well, and no one else had slipped on previous tours. Unfortunately she had found someone to blame, and perhaps to sue. After arranging for her to be driven back to Oklahoma in her pickup, I wondered if there would be any repercussions.
The driver who took the patient home returned to say I had perhaps better prepare for legal action so I duly consulted a local lawyer. Launching into the background of the story before describing the accident, I was surprised when the lawyer stopped me. "No need to worry," he said, "You're not at risk."
"You haven't even heard the rest of the story," I said. "I don't need to," he replied, "You are not at risk since you are a one-man operation with no assets. You're not American Express. She will not find a lawyer to take on the case, regardless of its merits,"
I did not hear from any lawyer, or from the lady herself. I hope she reconsidered her attitude that I was to blame but I understand how that was easier than blaming herself on a mistake of her own making. I never required travelers on any of my trips to sign an insurance waiver concerning accidents since I believed local Texas residents would not think or act like that.
Travelling with Texans was always a pleasure, and led me to alter my own thinking about taking tours. Long accustomed towards independent travel, for years I had ignored the positive side of group travel. Now I was earning an income from selling tours, but I also underwent a change of attitude. This was mainly because of the sort of people who signed up on my trips: trusting, good natured and full of curiosity. I experienced very few "ugly American" attitudes.
Having learned how to be a tour guide myself (in the Big Bend region) and having watched other tour guides, good and bad, over many years and in many countries, I believe that a good tour guide can make all the difference to a travel experience for the first-time visitor. A guidebook is fine, but time-consuming; a human face can personalize and dramatize a situation so it remains in one's memory.
By 2008 violence by narco cartels in Chihuahua State was increasing so much that it was starting to affect tourism. Many large US tour companies using the Chepe train were cancelling their tours. I wondered how it would affect my tours, and I would soon find out. By 2009 no one was buying my trips and I stopped advertising. Three years on, Copper Canyon seems to be safe again for travelers. Perhaps it is time to restart my trips to this wonderful region.
PART IV, CHAPTER 13
VOLUNTEER–TRAVELER
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2004
KAZAKHSTAN
VOLUNTEER
I applied to Peace Corps as a volunteer in 2003 and completed the whole process over the phone and by mail with little delay. Peace Corps wanted to judge my motivation to see how effective I might be, and also my physical fitness. I was 66 at that time and fell within Peace Corps's upper age limit of 80. My motivation was I was interested in spending a significant amount of time in a country I did not know, in seeing how I coped with the volunteer lifestyle, and in trying to leave behind something tangible for the local people.
Talking on the phone with my recruiter in Dallas, I found that Peace Corps was anxious to attract older volunteers because of their work experience. I could claim considerable business experience, and this is what they wanted in Kazakhstan. They planned to send the first ever group of business volunteers to Kazahstan in 2004. I stated my specialty was tourism, and added that I had studied Russian for one year.
Because there were also placements in other countries also available, I first read a few articles about Kazakhstan before accepting the position. I found it was in Central Asia, the ninth largest country in the world by land mass. It was mainly flat steppe terrain, but was bordered by mountains to the west and south. It had large reserves of oil and gas, which were being extracted and provided great revenues. It had been part of the Russian Empire, and later the USSR, but had become independent with the fall of the Soviet Union.
Upon independence there were hopes for democratization, but this had not happened. Little of the income from oil and gas revenues trickled down to improve the lives of the ordinary people. To some of them, things had gotten worse. At least, in the old days, there was a feeling of security. The country's leader, President Nazarbayev, who previously had been the leader of the Kazakhstan Socialist Republic within the USSR, was now a virtual dictator. Corruption was rampant at all levels and the economy, outside of the energy business, was stalled.
We were given a two day Peace Corps orientation in Washington, DC before flying to Kazakhstan. Much of this was predictable and useful to a degree. There was an inspirational talk by a senior staff member, and a couple of talks by volunteers recently returned from Kazakhstan. Someone came from the Kazakh embassy to say how important Peace Corps was to Kazakhstan.
This was the first chance the volunteers had to meet the rest of the group which numbered 28. My initial impression was I that had little in common with the rest of the group. It wasn't a question of age. The average age was probably around 32 and here were also two other over 60s in the group. Eleven had M.A.s. It was more a question of attitude. I saw self important alpha types who were now going to put things right in Kazakhstan. At one stage in the orientation, everyone was asked whey they had joined Peace Corps. "Show me the pit toilet." said one. "My whole life is in two bags." said another. I sensed from the answers nothing of the goodwill spirit I had been expecting or even a genuine curiosity in the Kazakh people.
We flew via Frankfurt, Germany and arrived around 3 a.m. in Almaty, Kazakhstan's largest city and then capital (until it was later moved to Astana). At that hour in the morning there was no delay in getting through immigration. While we were waiting for our bags to appear, a blond-haired alert woman appeared and introduced herself as Kris Besch. She was the country director. To me she said: "I know you have written three guidebooks, I hope your experience will help us here." After a token customs inspection, we lugged our bags and laptops (just about everyone had one) outside where a group of current Peace Corps volunteers welcomed us and shook our hands. The weather was biting cold, and there was snow on the ground.
Three months of training followed. We were taken to a small town called Issik twenty miles from Almaty, where we were put with private families and used a local school as our classroom. Here we met the Peace Corps staff, a group of able Kazakhs whose job was to prepare us for two years in-country when we would be on our own.
I hated the time spent training. The training schedule lasted three months and consisted of daily Russian language lessons and also talks on Kazakh culture and health issues. It was late February and still winter. The school was not well heated, and we all wore overcoats in the classrooms. Our teacher was a competent and attractive Yughur in her forties called Guzel but our progress went at the speed of the slowest learner. During breaks I found I had little to say to my fellow students.
Walking to the school from my lodging meant slipping and sliding on potholed streets which had not been cleared of snow and ice. There were some traditional, pleasant-looking small houses with gardens in the town, but most of the public buildings and apartment blocks were drab, grey in color and needing maintenance work. The local market and the bus station were the only places that had some life. It took me 30 minutes to walk to the school, or I could catch a ride. Drivers of private cars accepted paying passengers so I just stood at the roadside and waved at any passing car to stop, then agreed the fare.
During our time off, we took trips into Almaty as a group or on our own. Before leaving Texas, I had been given the name of a Kazakh family in Almaty. The father had been an academic and an important figure in the Communist party. Two sons were doing well in an economy which was evolving from communist to partial capitalist, with corruption being the main factor. I contacted them and was immediately invited to their home, an apartment in a modern building.
The family was kind and thoughtful, inviting me out for meals and showing me the sights of Almaty. Nine months later, when I arrived back from a Christmas vacation trip to London with an unmanageable load of saddles and bridles for "Wild Nature," my host organization, the sons saved my bacon. Responding to a desperate email from me, they met me at the airport, and transported the unwieldy tack by car to their apartment. They fed me a meal, then took me to the train station and loaded everything onto the train I was taking to my village.
My fellow volunteers were adapting according to their commitment and abilities. We had lost two after three months: one, a lawyer, was sent back to the USA as a wrong choice. The other, an older woman, could not cope with the primitive living conditions. Everyone else was making some sort of progress with the language, and anxious to get to their destination to start the real work.
Peace Corps made a big show out of the graduation process. First there was a performance at the school by all volunteers, as a thank you to the families who had hosted us, and also for the hosts of the institutions or business which were about to accept us to work with them. Then we were taken to a public meeting room in Almaty where the American ambassador formally enrolled us into Peace Corps. This was followed by a buffet meal.
Some of the group wanted to go out drinking, but I headed back to the bus station to catch a ride back to Issik. I was walking down a main street, along a broad pavement, when a young guy overtook me. As he passed he pointed to what looked like a wallet lying on the pavement. He pointed at it, then enquiringly glanced at me saying, in effect: "Should I pick this up? Should we share the contents?" I shrugged and walked on.
A block later, an angry man confronted on the sidewalk showing me an empty wallet. It looks like the wallet that the other fellow had just picked up. The man in front of me was gesturing, threatening perhaps, and seemed to be suggesting I owe him money. I ignored him and walked on. He followed me for a while shouting but then broke off. Later I found out that this was a local scam, enticing a stranger to share in stolen goods, and then confronting him to get a pay off to prevent him from going to the police. Fortunately I had not participated, so I felt no involvement. It was the last thing I expected just having participated in Peace Corps graduation.
Because of my background in tourism, I got a choice location when assignments were announced. This was with a Non Governmental Organization called "Wild Nature" which was developing a green tourism program in a village called Aksu Zhabagly in the south of Kazakhstan. Close to the Tien Shen range (an extension of the Himalayas), the village contained the headquarters of the oldest national park in central Asia which started just north of the village and encompassed 503 square miles.
"Wild Nature" NGO was the brain child of two Russian wildlife biologists, Svetlana Baskakova and Vladimir Shakula, who had stayed on in Kazakhstan after the split up of the Soviet Union. They were working on a shoestring budget out of their house in Aksu Zhabagly, dependent on income from tourists to survive. They were hoping that a Peace Corps volunteer would help them develop their services, and market them to a wider public. That was my job.
The village of Aksu Zhabagly was one long street bordered by small houses. All had electricity. A mile away the flat steppe gives way to the foothills of the Tien Shan mountains. Snow lay on the highest peaks year-round. This was glorious scenery. Along the main street were a mosque, attended by just a few old men, a three story school with flaking paint and a village store. 800 people lived here. Minibuses waited at one end of the street, and when full, departed for Tyulkubas, the nearest town.
SVETLANA’S CHILDREN
OLD MAN ON DONKEY
KAZAKH CHILDREN
TOURISM HOST FAMILY, ZHABAGLY
I was given a room in a one-story house with a large orchard. The husband did occasional farm work and looked after the orchard; the wife was a teacher. Their youngest daughter still lived at home, a shy fourteen-year- old who spoke good English. The house had heating, and there was a banya shed (sauna) outside where I took a weekly wash. The house also had a phone so I could get dial-up internet connection on my laptop. This was a comfortable place given the conditions in the village, and I got on well with the family.
The economy of the village changed drastically for the worse after the collapse of the USSR. Previously, a chicken factory close to the village gave employment to many villagers. When Kazakhstan became independent there was no money to subsidize the chicken factory. It closed down, and with it went dozens of jobs. The manager, through connections, got a job as chief of the National Park. The abandoned buildings of the chicken farm stood right next to the road which connected Zhabagly to the main highway - a bleak testimonial to the old way of life.
The jobs which were left were teaching, and living off the land. The teachers all dressed very correctly, but I questioned the standard of education which the students received. When we dropped in at an English class at the barracks-like three-story school, we found a very nervous teacher who seemed frightened to speak to us in English and totally apathetic students working from the dullest English language book.
The rest of the village lived off the land. This meant cultivating their gardens and keeping a cow and perhaps a horse. The cows were kept in a shed behind each home, and were let out in the morning to graze on the surrounding steppe, guarded by a small boy.
The major event of the day happened in the early evening when the cows were herded back to the village. They approached in a long line and each cow, as it recognized its owner who stood by an open gate, peeled off and went to its shed.
A few of the cottages in the village offered accommodation for tourists. This was due to a grant from a U.S. Foundation and training provided by "Wild Nature." The Kazakhs had a long tradition of hospitality, and what they received in their training was an understanding of what foreigners expected. Guests who travelled overnight by train from Almaty were met at the local rail station and driven for twenty minutes to a tourist home in Zhabagly by myself or another volunteer. They would be greeted at the door by a Kazakh woman in traditional dress saying "Welcome to my home". They would then take breakfast, sitting kazakh-style on cushions at a low table.
Then, depending on how much time they had, we would take them into the National Park, to a famous Muslim mosque 60 miles away, or to a bird banding station. Swimming and horse back riding was also available. Trips into the park had to be arranged through the corrupt and inefficient administration. Entry tickets had to be obtained from them, and payment made for overnight accommodation in the run-down hut
s in the park. Despite this, the tourists loved seeing prehistoric markings on rocks at 10,000 feet (which Wild Nature called the highest art gallery in the world), and hearing Vladimir, who was fluent in English, interpreting the terrain and identifying wildlife.
With a small but increasing number of tourists arriving at the village, I was kept reasonably busy with guiding duties. The other area where they needed help was with marketing, including a web page. They already had a volunteer from the British agency, Voluntary Service Overseas, which is roughly the equivalent to Peace Corps. This fellow had got a grant and supervised the production of a brochure. The potential for nature tourism was promising despite having to work with the park administration.
Since tourist to Kazakhstan require a visa and on arrival have to submit to periodic reporting of their whereabouts to the police, it made sense to tap into the expatriate market to promote tours to Zhabagly. With another VSO volunteer, I got invited to address the wives of diplomats and oil company executives in one of Almaty's best hotels. This was an easy and successful promotion, and made easier because getting to Zhabagly by train from Almaty was simple.
One of the few good legacies from Soviet days was the rail system which extended across the USSR, including the trans Siberian route to the Pacific coast. Several times I travelled by train from Zhabagly to Almaty for a weekend, perhaps to a Peace Corps meeting or else to take time off for myself. I always booked a bed in a four berth sleeping car. Sharing food with the other passengers in the compartment, and trying to talk with them, and finally climbing into a top bunk, with sheets, was always a thrill. Listening to the sounds from the huge steam engine and the passage of the wheels over the rails would send me immediately into a sound sleep.
Arriving in Almaty, my first visit was to a banya - a public sauna. This is another legacy from the days of the USSR. I opted for a Turkish bath similar to what I had experienced in Istanbul. This meant going into a large circular room, and lying on a slab which was heated from below. Smaller alcoves around the main room provided for more privacy for people who wanted to talk. Cold showers were available around the room, and after about 60 minutes of lying on the slab, alternating with a cold shower, I was cleansed, perked up and ready to go.
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