I don’t know where the shame of being a tourist comes from. I’ve heard many friends in full touristic swing say that they don’t want to mix with tourists, realizing that even though they don’t mix with them, they are just as much tourists as the others. When I visit a place and haven’t enough time to get to know it more than superficially, I unashamedly assume my role as tourist. I like to join those lightning tours in which the guides explain everything you see out of the window — “On your right and left, ladies and gentlemen . . . ” one of the reasons being that when I know once and for all everything I needn’t bother to see when I go out later to explore the place on my own.
— “Watching the Rain in Galicia,” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, translated from the Spanish by Margaret Costa
Kanlaon 