Reformed Turtle Beaters Make For Better Tour Guides - by Daniel

Wasn’t too long ago they were whacking nesting sea turtles with wooden clubs and scrambling up turtle eggs for breakfast. The guide said they were killing upwards of 3500 a day. That was just before he dived off the bow of the boat and surprised a bobbing terrapin. He held it by its shell, a sort of gentle half nelson, hands out of the reach of its pointy beak and its flopping fin. The fin had strangely placed sharp nails, we learned, for better mounting, humping and engagement. He manhandled it long enough for us to also jump in and cop a feel – an incredible assortment of protective textures. Perhaps 10 minutes after this bit of low impact tourist torture, he liberated the turtle. It plummeted towards the safer depths. Sabina is undertaking a research project on the sea turtle (though she herself didn’t join the turtle handling, insisting that it was indeed a form of torture).

On our turtle hunt, the guides trolled for tuna, snagging a couple of them as well as some kind of tropical snapper and a needle fish. Those sea creatures were not spared a clubbing and one was sold to us for a lunch that couldn’t be beat.

I’ll be engaged in a study for the next few months on the impacts of tourism in Oaxaca. Perhaps the spared turtles could be at least partially chalked up to a positive tourism impact? My study – a chapter of a book on tourism in Central American and the Caribbean that I’m contributing to – will focus on Oaxaca’s urban center – a colonial jewel. With agriculture failing, natural resources depleting, no appreciable industry and population growing quickly, Oaxaca has bet big on its tourism industry. The usual positive impacts are cited – historic and ecological preservation and service sector employment. Less discussed is the seamy side – spiraling real estate prices leading to displacement of working families, commoditization of cultural rites, dead-end, poorly paid jobs, the ruling class and economic inequalities entrenched as powerful elites usurp tourism’s dividends and aquifers sucked to precarious levels to wash tourists’ towels. I’ve been exploring these themes through interviews – it’s been fascinating. Stay tuned for discoveries.