ABSTRACT
Why is it that viewed from the ‘West’ there is a certain nobility, sympathy, even romanticism, of the rural poor and poverty, but a neglect – close to despite – for the poor that crowd into the ramshackled slums that cling precariously to the margins of Latin American cities? A strange question perhaps in a book on tourism. However, there has always been a tendency in the alternative and responsible travel world to accentuate the possibilities and potentials of culture-rich rural repositories and to downgrade or worse demonise cities in the horror stories that cram the broadsheet alternative travel pages and the ‘thumpers’ of travel writing. Moreover, rural areas are those demanded by the new travel, whilst the obesity of urbanisation is anything but ‘cultural’. Why are First World cities, the crucibles of innovations, cultural hybridity and excitement, celebrated in the West and, comparatively, those of the developing world cursed?
