Israeli Tourists

Until recently I never really thought of myself as being racist -- well I think we all have tendencies but I guess we learn to manage them and overcome them. However, I have to report a new-found aversion to Israeli backpackers in Guatemala, on account of a terrible tendency towards arrogance, miserliness, indiscriminate distrust of local people, disregard for the welfare of non-Israelis or people they otherwise are not familiar with, and a rather gruff manner to top it all off.

The first case in point, and still the best one, is that of the Israeli couple who were holed up in the church in San Marcos with us and the village when the disaster struck -- as the rest of us were trying to haul supplies up the hill from the village and keep spirits up and make sure everyone was well, this couple looked in their insurance policy and apparently found that they were covered for emergency mountain rescue by helicopter and so called the rescue helpline and demanded a helicopter! They even managed to convince a few other similarly deranged foreigners to join them... and so they were all sitting there in the hope that a chopper would turn up imminently to spirit them away from the mess, presumably as the villagers just looked on haplessly.

Then the couple accused one local youth who had been so helpful to us all morning (he was part of the evacuation crew) and who had risked his life to head back down to the Piramides site to rescue the Israeli girl's rucksack, of trying to nick the rucksack -- I tried reasoning with her that he didn't really need to tell her beforehand that he was heading down to get it if he had intended to steal it, but she was less than convinced.

On the other hand, we have also found some really lovely Israeli tourists -- notably the gentle soul who led us to El Retiro (who remarked that the hotel was a good deal and he couldn't complain... which those in the know will recognise as an atypical comment) and the group who returned with us from Finca El Paraíso -- but I regret that these are a small minority.