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Chatting with Marlene Ehrenberg: Ecotourism Pioneer
by Barbara Kastelein
Imagine visiting places in Mexico
where you get to experience not only the culture but also the
landscape in unique ways. |
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One can learn about regional textiles, cacti, fiestas, art,
astronomical observation, musical groups and choral associations,
orchids, indigenous ceremonies, ceramics, different trees, Olmecs,
as well as join in culinary workshops and balloon flights.
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| This is just a small taster of
what Marlene
Ehrenberg is offering with Rebozo, a tour operator whose
tentacles stretch anywhere in the country. "I have the
Republic in my hands," Marlene says, almost nonchalantly.
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She can afford such confidence, and reach so far, because
she has been involved in the field of tourism and ecotours (her
passion) since 1967, when she gained her license as a SECTUR
accredited tour guide from the longdefunct Escuela de Turismo,
in downtown Mexico
City, and has been making waves sometimes choppy, towering
ones ever since.
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A WEALTH OF INFORMATION
Most people in the world of Mexico tourism and travel writing
have come across Marlene, whose wealth of knowledge and experience
(only 50 percent of her decades of research has been computerized,
she says) is unrivalled. Even those who have crossed swords
with the feisty and intractable redhead acknowledge her role
as a pioneer.
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"You become ambitious because there's so much to do,"
says Marlene. She is a founder of associations, lobbyist, explorer,
critic, the brain behind the Ruta
de Cortes (the original idea behind what SECTUR now calls
Ruta de los Dioses), as well as a maverick and visionary.
Never plodding, she generates enthusiasm within a breath: "The
marvel of this country is the weather. We have never managed
to market the climate well. We should say, 'Come to Mexico in
the rainy season!' " Instead, international promotion focuses
on the dry season.
"October through December my schedule is filled by the
snow birds," she observes. She gave some reasons why tourists
might come to Mexico during the rainy summer when Europe is
beautiful. "First, it's green, it's when we plant our maize,
we are hijos del maíz. Secondly, it is the cycle
that leads to Day
of the Dead, one of Mexico's principal ceremonies."
She also said Mexico's unique geography situated between colder
northern climates and the tropical south has produced incredible
biodiversity, with many species of mammals and reptiles that
would be of interest to tourists year-round.
While she tells me this and makes me a lemonade, she also manages
to feed in snippets from her colorful, bicultural past. She
told me about her seven brothers, learning to drive at age 14,
her Kibbutz experience and studying archeology and languages.
Her father was a German Jew of practical inclinations who took
her to tend the garden, replete with everything from geese to
carrots, while her mother a "cocktail" of nationalities
made fast friendships with the housemaids, wore huipiles, went
to mayordomías, (ceremonies anointing the local steward)
and bought pulque on Saturdays.
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INSIDER KNOWLEDGE
"My knowledge brings added value to the tours," she
points out. Her father was an associate of Russian revolutionary
leader Leon Trotsky and the artist Frida Kahlo, for example.
Marlene recalls the artist Diego Rivera from when she was about
8 years old. "I remember his huge behind. I don't remember
his face!" she says with a twinkle, grabbing some photos.
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THE ARTISTIC APPROACH
She had recently returned from Acapulco
where she saw two whales spouting out at sea and she manages
to convey the wonder, and preciousness, even while she is hurtling
on to explain the next thing.
Yet the images were from a slightly earlier trip to Nayarit.
There she had been allowed to witness the quinceñera
(15th birthday celebration) of a Huichol girl as well as the
slicing up of the cow, which Marlene said took place astonishingly
quickly. She has a stunning picture of the young woman in her
colorful clothing holding the horns.
"These things are unique," the tour guide said simply
of her photographs. She laments the day when she loaned the
CPTM (Mexican Tourism Promotion Board) a set of her own slides
to be used in a promotion that were never returned to her. But
she perks up soon.
"When I design my rutas they are like doing a painting
they are different each time." A number can be consulted
on the website -- http://www.marlene-ehrenberg.com.mx
-- where you can also learn about the Mariposa
de Agua water conservation project, participating hotels
and a wide range of adventure-sports options.
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ORIGINAL TOURS
But just as exciting are Marlene's custom-made tours. She
can organize anything you can imagine: from weddings with a
twist to days floating on the canals in Xochimilco in the south
of Mexico City. She once organized a visit to a dairy ranch
for some German farmers. Other tourists got to see nopales growing
in Milpa Alta and others spent time at Chapingo University in
the State of Mexico. She has set up something unique for a foreign
writer seeking inspiration, visits to artists' studios for a
group of architects even scouting for a spooky house for a film!
You get the sense Marlene dislikes repeating herself, which
must make her the most dedicated and lively companion on a tour.
The winner of Planeta.com's 2002
Colibri Ecotourism Award, Marlene admits she is permanently
researching, and while she is fighting to get ecotourism legally
recognized "it has to be sustainable, that's the key word,"
she says she seems miraculously untainted by officialdom, and
barely soured by bumping her head against bureaucracy.
"Alternative tourism can mean anything," she cautions,
before launching yet again the liberating sensation that travel
in Mexico is shimmering with wonders that are almost completely
untapped; that current offers, from government programs to guidebooks,
are not only barely scraping the surface but permanently on
holiday themselves unlike Marlene, a workaholic who doesn't
sit still for long.
"Tourism here is trapped in a box. I dare to do things,"
she says, and the freshness of her no-nonsense approach can
be quite empowering, enabling others to realize that we too
have the Republic in our hands.
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AUTHOR
Barbara Kastelein
has PhD in literature from the University of Warwick in England,
and has published her writings about Mexico for ten years in
Mexican, British and U.S. publications. |
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