Christmas & New Year Tours in Mexico

Overall it was good! Accommodations and bus tickets were fine. Good location and clean. There were just some miscommunication between Mexican providers and Bamba travel, it's better to write their numbers on WhatsApp and communicate before your trip just to confirm everything! I missed Chichen Itza trip bc of that. Otherwise all was good and I enjoyed my trip.

The overall tour was exceptional! Our tour had to be altered a bit as we didn’t depart from the US. We were treated like royalty by Rigoberto who handled our early arrival, special accommodations and pick up transportation after the train trip. The canyons are spectacular, a must see and visiting where the Raramuri indigenous people live was eye opening. Learning about the El Chepe train and experiencing the journey through the country will be cherished as well as the EL Mirador Hotel located on the rim of the canyon. All staff were friendly and kind. I highly recommend this adventure of a lifetime.

While I mostly enjoyed my trip, there were a few issues that interfered with full enjoyment. I arrived in Mexico City one night ahead and when I went to my room, I saw it had a king sized bed. I called the front desk immediately to ask about this, since I was traveling as a single and was supposed to be sharing a room. The desk clerk, the same one who had checked me in, told me there's no mistake. I explained again and she became impatient, insisting this is how it was booked. The next night, after returning from a longer than expected round trip walk to a restaurant for dinner (and drinks) with the group, I was told I had to pack up (once I was told there was no mistake (I had unpacked quite a bit) and it would have to be tonight. I am an older person, was very tired and the walk had been a long one. I have foot and ankle problems and was having some pain after the walk which had been described as just a few blocks but was much longer. I checked with my roommate now that I knew who she was. She had also been there a day early. All of this could have been resolved the day before or earlier on this day. So I ended up staying in the room and paying the full cost for 3 nights, in addition to what I had paid for the trip including a room. There was no acknowledgement from the same hotel clerk who in fact was rude, and certainly no apology. The tour guide was not particularly understanding either. The "planned roommate" and I made the decision together. In Puebla I again paid for an individual room on top of what I'd already paid for the trip. When we arrived in Oaxaca we decided that we would share the room as planned. The room was not shareable for 2 strangers. There was no AC, no window, and the toilet was just a couple of feet away from one of the beds. The safe was broken. It was claustrophobic. After much confusion and negotiation with the desk staff ( a very helpful man), the roommate decided to go to another hotel and I had to pay extra. But the lack of appreciation for this situation and the changing plans that often didn't match what he'd said before, created a lack of trust in our tour guide and left us feeling frustrated and for me, exhausted. The other issues that I should mention for the sake of future travelers with this group, were the distances that we walked. I specifically asked before booking the trip about what the walking and terrain would be like so that I could decide if this was for me. I was told that walking would be fairly limited. But our guide had specific places, especially food markets where we frequently ate, that seemed like there was some sort of connection. Though we enjoyed these types of food places for a while, we eventually spoke up about wanting a different experience, especially in restaurants. The Pyramids were wonderful but I wish I had known how difficult they'd be for me to navigate. It didn't seem to me that our guide was under any understanding that there were limitations for some of us. But in the end I managed it all even if it meant going down the steps sitting down. Finally, one of my biggest frustrations was in the guide himself. There was much that was good, but his constant referencing to the superiority of the Spanish over the civilizations in Mexico, as well as some totally wrong characterizations and outdated wording about what occurred when the Spanish arrived was so off-putting for me, a student of history and anthropology, that I simply wandered away during these long lectures designed to uphold his own Spanish identity. I also got a sense of where he stood on certain aspects of politics, race and immigration in the US where I have lived since 1968. He believed that he knew more about it than I did and there were shades of racist ideology that let me know where he stood. I enjoyed meeting the people in the group, the transportation between cities was fine, and I have tons of amazing pictures. I would have like more options for a single person to do on free days but even that was satisfying. The guide was a nice man, informative in certain ways, funny and mostly a seemingly decent person, but the issues I've laid out here need to be taken into consideration.