How to Be a Tour Guide …

Around 2 years ago, arrangements began to be made to hold an international convention of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Quito, Ecuador in 2015.

About a year ago, the call went out for those who were able to be involved as volunteer tour guides. With some trepidation, we volunteered.

For a few months, all was fairly quiet, and in the meantime we moved north from Cuenca to Otavalo (only 2 hours drive from Quito, as opposed to about 8 hours from Cuenca), which turned out to be handy for us, as all the training was held in Quito.

Then the training began. We first received information by email about the tours that the Ecuador branch would be giving – one tour was to Colonial Quito and another tour to Mitad del Mundo (Middle of the World, or the Equator) and to the nearby geo-botanical park, Pululahua (“cloud of water” or fog, in Quichua).

The brothers organising the tours emailed us information we would need to become familiar with relating to the two tours, and encouraged us to also do our own research to become more familiar with the subject.

We were asked to come to Quito at the end of October 2014 for 2 days of training.

Around 150 of us met on the Friday night at a Kingdom Hall in Quito near the venue where the convention would be held. We were given an overview of what would be done and how, and what our responsibilities would be. One of the main pieces of advice given was, Do not lose your delegates!! (That was to ring in our ears many a time after this!)

Then the next day we all piled into 4 tour buses and were given a drive-through of how the tours would go. While en route to the tour sites, our bus captains discussed with us the information relating to the tours that we had previously received by email, in the hopes that we had absorbed some of it.

The purpose of these “practice” tours was for us to become familiar with the places we would be taking the delegates, and for the brothers with overall responsibility to see how things worked, any potential problems, anything that needed to be improved.

One thing that became evident when we went to the Equator venue was that although all the trainee tour guides went by elevator up to the top of the monument (from which there were great views and you could see out various points of interest), only 8 people could go up in the elevator at one time, and the trip down required walking down many flights of stairs.

The view from the top of the monument at Mitad del Mundo (the equator) overlooking the complex.  You can see the equator line marked with North and South either side

 

It was thought because of the large number of delegates who would be taking part in the tours, the fact that a lot of them would be in an older age group, and most delegates would be unused to the possible effects of the high altitude (even higher at the top of the monument! Ha ha!), that going to the top of the monument should be made optional rather than a set part of the tour.

And the next day when we were visiting the oldest, or Colonial, part of Quito, the route that had been planned meant we started the tour walking up-hill along a historic street, and continuing to walk up a slight incline towards Colonial Quito and the historical buildings there.

This was the original up-hill route toward colonial Quito. 

The sister in the middle of the photo with the red vest and brown hat is the wife of the brother who was our bus captain for the training days. Most of those to the left of her were trainee guides

 

A comment by one of the trainee tour guides to the effect that the proposed up-hill route was a good way to wear out the delegates got back to the brothers at Bethel who were overseeing the whole project, so it was decided to change the route to start at the top, and walk down hill. (I think us trainee tour guides were the “guinea pigs”, and if you know anything about Ecuador, you know that being a guinea pig is no assurance of a long and happy life!!)

Here is our training group at a place called Itchimbia. 

It was part of the Quito Colonial tour and is a look-out from which you can see a lot of Quito.  The sister to the left of the photo with the outstretched arm is pointing out some of the volcanoes in the area.  How she could remember all the information and statistics, I don’t know!

 

In the next few weeks, we received further information about our roles, procedures, emergency contact numbers, which tours we were assigned to, etc.

The plan was that each tour guide would have 1 tour that they were assigned to, and that they would also be familiar with the other tour just in case they were needed to fill in if the assigned tour guide couldn’t make it.

I was relieved to find that I was assigned the Equator and Pululahua geo-botanical park tour rather than the Quito Colonial tour. There were a few of us who had said, “I hope I don’t get the Quito tour” as the chances of “losing one’s delegates” in a city of around 2.5 million people seemed rather likely!

Somewhere in amongst all these people are some of the trainee tour guides

 

“Does anyone know which of these are my delegates?”

 

Brendan and many other brothers were not assigned to be tour guides, but rather Hotel Co-ordinators or Site Co-ordinators. Being a Hotel Co-ordinator meant that they wouldn’t take out any tours, but would be based at one of the various hotels where the delegates were staying to co-ordinate the guides, buses, delegates, etc, and make sure that, as far as possible, everything ran smoothly and on time. If there was more than one tour leaving from a hotel, there was a Co-ordinator there. If it was a smaller hotel with just one tour leaving, the tour guides would look after what needed to be done.

The brothers who were assigned to be Site Co-ordinators were at the various tour sites to ensure that things ran smoothly and as scheduled. For instance at the geobotanical park, they needed to make sure that the buses departed on time – being a national park meant that only a certain amount of people were allowed in at any one time, so the buses needed to run to schedule.

Our next and final training was at the end of December 2014, at which time we would get our official tour guide lanyards and vests (bright red, so our delegates can’t lose us!) and go over the tour sites again with each of us assigned to explain a part of the tour to the rest of our group of trainees so as to get a taste of how the tour would go when we came to do it for real.

At Itchimbia, overlooking the south end of Quito (it’s a long, thin city, running north to south).  Colonial Quito is the area just to the right of the centre of the photo (near the bottom) where there is a sister standing by herself, and the buildings have brown roof tiles

 

This time, many of the local congregations would be on hand as it was planned that they would be waiting in certain areas to greet the delegates and enjoy association, and again it would be a practice run to work out the logistics of how that would work, how long would it take to walk the tour now that our local brothers were there as well. (We found that it did take quite a while longer if you stopped to greet each one – Ecuadorians like to greet by shaking hands or  greeting with a kiss, so it takes longer than a casual wave from a distance.)

We were asked not to tell our delegates that the brothers would be there waiting for them, so it would be a nice surprise for them. When we arrived at our first site in Colonial Quito and saw the local brothers with their banners and their applause and warm welcome, it was us that felt overwhelmed and emotional, and we said to each other, “we’re not even the delegates – we’re just the tour guides!”

4 buses of tour guides have just arrived at Plaza de San Francisco in colonial Quito to a warm welcome from some of the local brothers, complete with banner of welcome

 

There’s Brendan on the right of the photo at the Plaza of Independence in colonial Quito.  You can see quite a few of the tour guides in their red vests near the centre

 

Here we are walking down La Ronda (it was previously part of the up-hill route) in colonial Quito

 

Still in La Ronda – one of the oldest streets in Quito.  Around 100 years ago the area was popular with musicians and poets and the like, and nowadays there are many cafes and  shops selling artisan goods.  Just about everyone in this photo not wearing a red vest would be one of our local brothers or sisters.  We kinda took over the place!!

 

Such a happy bunch!

 

As part of the welcome for when the tours came through for the convention, some of the Ecuadorian brothers and sisters were going to put on a dance, and we were able to see them practising.

 

Indigenous dancing

The indigenous clothing worn by the sisters is typical of the town of Otavalo where we live, and that worn by the brothers is from Riobamba in the middle of the country.

More of the welcoming committee – they waited a long time to greet the tour guides, as they were toward the end of the route for the Quito colonial tour, but were still happy and excited to see us by the time we came through

 

More local brothers with one of the many banners of welcome

 

 Coming towards the end of the tour where still more brothers were waiting for us

 

This really was a fun experience!

 

One of the nice things about being involved with the training and tours for the International Convention was getting to know a lot of brothers and sisters that we probably would not have otherwise met.

One of these was a sister named Georgette (above) who came to visit Ecuador as an 18 year old, fell in love with the people and the place and made plans to return. 19 years later, she is still here, married to an Ecuadorian brother, Luis, and together they serve in a congregation in Ecuador around 120 kilometres (75 miles) to the east of Quito, where their congregation of 65 publishers has an average meeting attendance of 120!

There is definitely much work to be done in Ecuador!