More fun with ‘tour guides’

TORONTO, Canada — What do Canada and the Philippines have in common? They both have waterfalls called the Bridal veil, which here in Canada is the mini-me version of the main Niagara Falls or the Canadian falls because it’s on the Canadian side. While Canada has a Horseshoe falls, the Philippines has several villages named Horseshoe.

Yes, I’ve finally made it to the Canadian side of the Niagara Falls and being here really puts everything in its proper place. It took one hour and a half by bus to get here and it was well worth the trip. Toronto has much more to offer aside from being a cleaner and calmer version of New York City. Driving out to the country, one gets a glimpse of suburban Canada where homes are relatively small and modest, compared to their neighbors literally across the river in the US, who have larger sized houses. In addition even the historical or old houses are well maintained.

Judging by their cars and their garage, people living between Toronto and Niagara are certainly pragmatic as shown by the presence of daily driver models and utility vehicles. Once in a while you’ll see the odd European sports car driving by, but other than that, the locals are not flashy about their homes and their cars. Given the kind of cold weather they are exposed to and the high taxes they pay government, people here don’t waste too much money on entertainment and are frugal.

There were very few of the commercialized man-made model except for the typical Casino-entertainment facility obviously built to attract tourists. On this trip the appetizer location was the picture perfect town of Niagara on the lake where we visited two well-known Canadian wineries, namely Jackson-Triggs and the more famous Inniskilillin Winery. While everyone may look forward to wine tastings and visiting a vineyard, I was excited to see the homes of the famous Canadian “Eiswein” or what is popularly known as Ice Wines.

Unlike the regular wines made from grapes, the Canadian Ice Wines are the result of Canadians taking advantage of what people would normally consider unpleasant. This took place in 1983 when several Canadian wineries decided to leave a portion of their grapes on the vines during freezing weather, believing this would preserve the full flavor of the grapes because of their continued exposure to below freezing temperature. After losing their first batch to hungry birds, the owners placed nets around the grape vines. The grapes stayed on the vines and were left in -10 degrees freezing weather. To insure that the fruits don’t lose any of its qualities, they gather the grapes between midnight and two in the morning by hand. Snow or none, they kneel in front of the vines and clip the grapes by hand while kneeling on the snow. For their efforts the wineries in this part of Canada have produced some of the best ice wines in the world. Filipinos will surely go gaga over ice wines because they fit our sweet palate. By the time we left the second winery several jet-lagged guests conked out on our way to Niagara.

Needless to say, Niagara Falls is awesome, picturesque, fearsome and beautiful. On a clear day, you could spend half of or a whole day walking from one vantage point to another. It is best to come during the warmer times of the year because the cold weather tends to bring in a lot of fog, which limits visibility. Interestingly, if you Google Niagara Falls, you might learn that at least 4 people have survived a fall from Niagara Falls. First were two kids that washed out on a boat accident and two “stunters” or daredevils; one woman and one man each of whom floated on a wooden barrel. So now that I’ve seen it, I have to say she was grand!

*      *      *

I am writing this piece sitting sideways on a bus full of journalists, travel agency owners, tour guides and representatives of Philippine Airlines.

On this particular day, the weather is overcast and drizzling all day long. Such quality weather usually creates a very somber mood or, as in a bus full of jet-lagged people, everyone would simply try to get some sleep. Not on bus #1. Instead we are all laughing like howling hyenas, cracking up at jokes and anecdotes being shared by travel agency owners. For the first time the one dealing the “cards” or “buma-bangka” are not columnists and reporters, but owners of travel agencies who’ve joined the PAL inaugural flight. Here are some of the gems that they shared:

One of the drawbacks of being an agency owner is that when VIPs or business owners request/demand that the agency owners personally “baby sit” their tour group. While this is all part of the business, things do get out of hand and some client tourists unconsciously revert to being bossy or behaving as if they were at home. They quickly forget that they’ve requested a business owner and not just the staff member. In some instances they even treat the agency owners like their own domestic help. Experience of course is the best teacher and in time they have learned to cope.

One travel agency owner shared that her pet peeve is when tourists start asking them to take photos. Just imagine 10 or more people giving you their cameras so you can take 10 individual pictures from separate cameras. Because of security concerns such as snatchers etc., the poor boss of the travel agency can’t dump the cameras on the ground. After a few hours, this recurring ritual begins to become physically painful. To put a quick stop to it, one travel agent shared how she would intentionally take bad photos that were off-center; vertically slice people’s arm or take photos that looked like ID pictures. When the guests start reviewing their photos they immediately discover the ugly shots. From then on, they would stop asking the Owner tour guide to be the unofficial group photographer.

*      *      *

In spite of their global travel experience a big number of the travel agents with us have not made the big switch to iPhone, iPad and Mac. They all confess to not being techie, so much so that when a young client asked: “Do you have an FB page, the travel guide replied: Do you want Food & Beverage?”

*      *      *

More to come on tour guides in the future.