Judy. The game plan was that Ted and I would spend a week in Mexico
City—a city I’ve longed to visit since my parents and brother went there when I
was a kid. I pored over those black and white photos of this exotic land and
hoped someday I’d go. I still have pieces of the silver belt my mom got there. So we made reservations in the Roma neighborhood, and made a list
of places to visit.
Tuesday I saw that
a friend had posted on Facebook, “Godspeed for the people of Mexico City.”
“Ted, what
happened in Mexico City?”
Moments later we
were googling every article we could get about the 7.1 earthquake that had just
struck near there.
With Hurricane
Maria bearing down on Puerto Rico, it was hard to get information about how
badly the city was damaged, but slowly we heard that older sections, including
Roma, had serious damage. We tried to contact our hotel, but no luck. United
Airlines offered a postponement to anyone flying in. Since we were to arrive on
Thursday, we finally called our Airbnb host in Oaxaca, who told us that in the
capital there was confusion, some power was down, and many buildings, including
museums, were closed. We quickly made plans to go straight to Oaxaca, with an
overnight stopover in Mexico City at an airport hotel.
As we flew over
the city, we were surprised to see so little damage from the air, and shocked
to see how many cars were on the road. Had we made a mistake? To top it off,
our hotel emailed to say it was business as usual (although they honored our
cancellation).
The news that
night was filled with the struggle to find children in a collapsed school.
While some survived, nineteen children and four teachers died.
Maybe for most of
the city, it is business as usual. Maybe they NEED tourist dollars more than
ever. Still, we felt that even the bottled water we’d be drinking would be a
strain. Almost 300 people died—didn’t really seem like they needed tourists
right now.
All of that comes
down to a discussion we’ve been having that somehow (at least to me) relates:
When is it NOT okay to visit somewhere?
Ankor Wat was
chock-a-block with tourists, and we could barely move in the crowd. We read
later that so many people are visiting that the water reserves under the city
are being drained, and there is fear that the temples cannot remain standing if
the water levels drop too much.
Venice, I’ve read,
has more tourists than residents, as do Iceland and Hawaii (both places have 6 visitors for
every resident annually). In Vancouver and in Honolulu, we talked with
residents who say that Airbnb business has caused apartment rentals to fall off
or become so expensive they can’t afford to live there. In Barcelona and
Venice, locals are protesting against excessive tourism. The negative impact is
not worth the money it’s bringing in.
Let me be clear: I’m
not throwing stones. Ted and I are part of the problem, as we’ve been most of
those places. Let me also be clear that I don’t know the answer, if there is
one. Many of these places rely on tourism to exist, so I don’t want to see them
shut their doors, but if we drive out the residents, who are part of the charm,
or, as in the case of Mexico City, if we use their precious resources and cause
more problems than we can help, is that right?
I really don’t
know. We’re looking at more “secondary” sites and cities to visit. It’s not a
solution. And Paris will always be a favorite destination. It’s definitely a
quandary for these two world travelers.
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