Enter 
the world 
of Questers 
nature 
tours . 
When you travel with Questers, you have the 
advantage of our knowledge of the travel 
world And our experience of the natural 
world We are travel professionals And our 
only tour program Is Worldwide Nature Tours 
You get reliable arrangements and expertly 
planned itineraries 
Under the leadership of an accompany- 
ing naturalist, we search out the plants and 
animals, birds and flowers rain forests, 
mountains, and tundra seashores, lakes, 
and swamps of the regions we visit At the 
same time, we explore the more usual attrac- 
tions in touring — the cities, archaeological 
sites, and people 
Where can you go with Questers? Vir- 
tually anywhere in the world The current Di- 
rectory of Worldwide Nature Tours describes 
32 tours varying from 9 to 30 days Following 
is a representative listing 
Worldwide Nature Tours 
1981 Departures (Partial Listing) 
The Americas 
Everglades: 11 days. Mar 26 & Nov 5 • 
Hawaii: 15 days, Feb 15, Apr 12, July 12, Oct 
11 & Dec 20 • Alaska: 17 days, June 6 & 20, 
July 4, 11 & 25 & Aug 8 • Newfoundland: 16 
days, June 14 • Baja California: 11 days, Apr 
17 & Oct 16 • Costa Rica & Panama: 16 days, 
Feb 14, Nov 21 & Dec 19 • The Amazon: 16 
days, Jan 19, May 11, July 6, Aug 10, Oct. 12 
& Nov 16 • Peru: 23 days, Apr 4, July 18 & 
Nov 7 • Ecuador & Galapagos: 15 days, Feb 
5 & 26, Apr 9, July 2, Aug. 13 & Oct 15 • 
Trinidad & Tobago: 11 days. Mar 9 & Nov 9 
Euro pe 
Iceland: 16 days, June 12, July 3 & Aug. 7 • 
Islands & Highlands of Scotland: 23 days, 
May 29, July 10 & Aug 21 • Spain: 18 days, 
Apr, 17 & Sept 4 
Asia and Africa 
Indonesia: 24 days, July 14 & Sept 8 • The 
Himalayas: 25 days, Mar 19 & Oct 8 • India: 
21 days, Jan 31 & Oct. 31 • Sri Lanka: 18 days. 
Feb 19 & Nov 19 • Kenya: 23 days, Feb 5, 
July 23 & Oct 22. 
Oceania and Australasia 
Australia & New Zealand: 30 days, Jan 31 & 
Sept 19 • New Zealand & the Milford Track: 
22 days, Feb 20 & Nov 13 
For a complimentary copy of the 
newest Directory of Worldwide Nature Tours 
outlining the entire program, write to Ques- 
ters or see your Travel Agent If you are 
interested in a specific tour, request the 
Detailed Itinerary Exploratory expeditions 
and special tours are announced from time 
to time in ogr newsletter Nature Tour Notes, 
sent free to all on our mailing list 
QUESTERS 
Questers Tours & Travel, Inc. 
Dept. NH371, 257 Park Avenue South 
New York, NY 10010 • (212) 673-3120 
subdivision of the Oaxacan north es- 
carpment district of Ixtlan. The cen- 
trally located village of San Pedro is 
the administrative center of the entire 
municipality of the same name. Cul- 
turally, Yolox is a distinct part of the 
western Chinantla, the traditional cen- 
ter of Chinantec cultures. 
The Chinantla is a broken cross sec- 
tion of the Sierra Madre Oriental and 
the municipality of San Pedro Yolox 
displays the same ample microgeo- 
graphical range that is characteristic 
of Mesoamerica in general. The vil- 
lage of Yolox, together with its en- 
vironing hamlets ( ranchos or ranche- 
rias), encompasses alpine, temperate, 
semitropical, and tropical zones. Ele- 
vations in the municipality range from 
2,300 feet above sea level at its lowest 
extremity in Rancho Esperanza to 
more than 6,500 feet above sea level 
in the administrative center. 
Once the arduous process of de- 
veloping sierra legs is well enough ad- 
vanced, it is possible to walk from 
the cold uplands above the central 
village, where the brisk air is filled 
with the scent of pines and cedars, 
to the tropical downcountry, where 
coffee, bananas, and lemon trees flour- 
ish. The elevated downslope portions 
of the municipality are by far the most 
productive. Coffee, which is the only 
cash crop, bananas, and vital building 
barks and vines are produced or gath- 
ered only in this region. However, the 
daughter streams of the Papaloapan 
River system that traverse this two- 
crop maize land are the breeding 
places of the several species of simu- 
liids that are the intermediate hosts 
of the larva of Onchocerca volvulus. 
Larvae transmitted by the bite of these 
simuliids may mature and reproduce 
in human hosts. Successful Oncho- 
cerca colonies expand along such con- 
nective tissue as the optic nerve. Sus- 
tained infestation induces onchocer- 
ciasis, skin lesions, and an alteration 
in the color of the skin known locally 
as mal morado (the “purple sick- 
ness”). Transgenerational exposure to 
onchocerciasis has occasioned an ab- 
normally high incidence of both eco- 
nomic and total blindness among Yo- 
lenos. 
The Chinantec-speaking peoples are 
heir to a lengthy heritage of conquest. 
The expanding Aztecan state was in- 
dustriously taxing and coercing them 
as the master mariners of Iberia were 
creeping westward. The conquistadors 
and the Dominicans forced them to 
gather hard by the marginal mountain 
wall, the better to watch and convert 
them. This legacy of subordination is 
manifest in the official name of the 
village. The Mexica (Aztecs) called 
it Yoloxochitlan, and the Spaniards 
called it San Pedro. It appears on 
maps as San Pedro Yolox, but its Chi- 
nantec inhabitants also call it Noo. 
Onchocerciasis is perhaps the most 
spectacular of numerous disasters that 
make life hard for Yolenos. Months 
of fierce rain and hurricanes, the 
yawning earth and the serpent’s mouth 
all take their mortal toll. This long 
history of subjugation and environ- 
mental trauma tends to make Yolenos 
publicly civil but privately wary be- 
fore God and the powerful stranger. 
In 1963 all cargo going into or leav- 
ing the village was carried on the 
backs of mules, horses, or men, but 
for all its remoteness, San Pedro was 
not isolated. The few radios of the 
municipality had conveyed the bad 
tidings of Mississippi and Alabama 
racism. I was assured by the municipal 
secretary in his welcoming address 
that I need have no fear of that par- 
ticular kind of barbarism from Yo- 
lenos. Big-state Mexican ideas about 
health, education, and culture were 
being transmitted by visiting doctors, 
nurses, and teachers. A squad of fed- 
eral soldiers was stationed there to 
prevent Yolenos or their neighbors 
from breaking the pax Mexicana by 
a rekindling of the traditional, bloody 
fighting for land. The Mexican gov- 
ernment with its commitment to the 
modern notion of progress had 
launched a medical campaign against 
river blindness and other endemic dis- 
eases. In 1963 ideas such as progress 
and the germ theory of disease were 
among the abstractions that many Yo- 
lenos weighed respectfully in their 
scanty leisure. There were three kinds 
of economic status among the Yolox 
Chinantec. A very small group of fam- 
ilies had shops and/or landholdings 
providing them with enough to eat 
of the foods that appeared in every- 
body’s good dream diet. An over- 
whelming majority made wry jokes 
about their very real poverty, their 
fleas, and their frequent recourse to 
low-prestige foods. Turkey, chicken, 
and other prestigious animal protein 
were esteemed condiments for Yole- 
nos, used most lavishly to add zest 
to fiesta dishes. A third group, a con- 
siderable number of families, were 
obliged by their extreme poverty to 
fast more often and resort even more 
frequently to the low-prestige foods 
14 
