The air in Oaxaca’s Huatulco National Park is thick as soup and the abundance of living things is so rich that my senses feel sated. Zapotec guide Perfecto Careno Ramirez brings the prize into focus through memories of his childhood in these lands. There is the grado tree, which is used in ceremonies to connect with ancestors; the roots of the cat’s nail vines, which delayed a scorpion’s fatal sting and saved its friend; and the ‘ear tree’, with its tough seed pods that its mother flakes off while bathing.
Many hotels in the area offer guided tours of the jungle, iridescent beaches, and coral reefs, but I booked through Huatulco Salvaje. Most members of this 12-strong Zapotec cooperative lived here before relocating in 1998, when the government declared Huatulco a national park. On the brightly painted porch of the cooperative’s office, founding member Sigifredo Castro tells me that despite their unique relationship with the land, they struggle to compete with tours offered by big hotels. “The all-inclusive model is broken,” he says, shaking his head. “Tourists don’t go out to meet people, and most of the money they bring in is from Mexico.”
I started dreaming about this trip to Tulum while eating a £20 meal. chickenpox and I do my best to avoid the various Instagram shots happening around me. I knew I wanted to connect with Mexicans who wanted to preserve their land and culture, but opportunities seemed few and far between shiny beach bars and EDM-blasting clubs. A Google search for community tourism projects turned up nowhere. Facebook pages with antique images suggested the owners were more interested in running their projects than promoting them, and due to my poor Spanish, the phone calls were more awkward than enlightening.
When I return to Oaxaca, I roll down the car window and watch the lush forest-covered hills pass by. Enter my friend Eytan Elterman, founder of Lokal Travel, a booking platform that supports small community-led projects in Latin America. We’re on an exploration mission, looking for new additions to Oaxaca, from its epic coastline to its mountaintop capital. To add to the platform.
“Remote communities in Mexico with limited access to job opportunities often resort to logging or mining to survive. Or, of course, they immigrate to America,” says Eytan, pausing to let a cow cross the road. “Community tourism empowers people to be stewards of their own land—not to mention offering travelers the opportunity to engage in cross-cultural exchanges that mean something.”
A few hours later, we are in a smoke-blackened kitchen in the hamlet of San José Manialtepec. Angela Carmona and Jacinto Garcia, who have lived in this house for 50 years, are about to reveal the recipe for their unique cheese. It’s oppressively hot and downright weird. Although the cheese-making workshop can be booked through Ecoturismo Manialtepec, the way Angela quietly rolls up her skirt suggests that few travelers take up the offer. Everyone laughs as Eytan’s forearms disappear into a bucket of whey. Angela runs over and shows him how to put what once belonged to his grandmother into the press, her hands caressing it with the dexterity of a master potter.
Señora Gonzalez, who later owns Ecoturismo Manialtepec with her husband Ismael, feeds us moles to the sound of bolero music emanating from the neighboring garden. Even though our faces were pink as we started cooking on the fire, we started to enjoy the deep, dark sauce. Cocoa says it took years of trial and error to perfect a recipe that included five types of red peppers, bread and an array of wild herbs roasted overnight.
As Eytan and I steam away in the air-conditioned car, he reflects: “There is a beautiful humility to what they offer here. He spent two days cooking the best mole I’ve ever tasted, but he doesn’t make a big deal about it. “This level of care is just part of his culture.”
At this point, I am ready to pledge my eternal commitment to community tourism. But my romantic bubble bursts at Ventanilla, where two cooperatives from the same community fight over running alligator spotting tours in the lagoon where the Pacific swallows the Tonameca River. Before we even get out of our car, two men, one from Lagarto Real Ventanilla and the other from La Ventanilla, attack and start explaining the superiority of their tour.
I’m ready to pledge my allegiance to community tourism when my romantic bubble bursts as two co-ops fight to offer alligator-watching tours in the lagoon where the Pacific swallows the Tonameca River.
Imogen Lepere
Both groups emerged with a vision to restore the mangrove forest after hurricanes; This was vital work as it protected against floods and acted as a carbon sink, both of which offered local people an alternative form of income to crocodile hunting. However, with over 600 visitors a day, this is an altogether less intimate experience.
“I’ve seen this in communities all over Latin America,” Eytan says as we walk along a beach littered with bleached wood like dinosaur bones, a calling card from Hurricane Agatha. “If revenue from tourism is not shared fairly, groups begin to fight over resources.”
The situation is very different in Teotitlán del Valle, a small village of adobe buildings with tile roofs, located 32 km away from Oaxaca city. Like many Zapotec towns, Teotitlán specializes in a particular craft: rug weaving. We visit the workshop of Vida Nueva, Mexico’s first all-women weaving cooperative, with a membership ranging from 12 to 20. Economic pressures that lead to alcoholism and domestic violence mean that many of these women are divorced and will struggle to find work due to the resulting stigma.
In the shaded workshop, Silvia, the 20-something daughter of founder Pastora Asunción Gutierrez Reyes, shows us the plants and minerals the women use to create paint, following formulas inherited from her great-great-grandmother. There is the cochineal, the insect that makes the dragon’s blood bleed red; Marigold blooms to mustard yellow and Brazilian wood pink. As he lifts each bowl into the air, I notice that he has a tattoo of an airplane on his wrist. “Most women my age in the village are married and have several children,” she says. “I’m saving money to travel.” As Silvia grows with a keen understanding of the power of cooperatives, let’s hope she can share the benefits of connecting with local communities on our travels for all involved.
