Turned up to the meeting point to be told the tour was cancelled minimal reasons provided. Was advised that a message was sent informing of this however no text, WhatsApp, email or notification in app found. Last communication received was “your tour starts in a few hours”. Poor service. Would not recommend.
Guide arrived late to the meeting point and was not sufficiently prepared, did not have enough historical and cultural knowledge of the place, made some inaccurate statements, did not have answers to the questions and was reading notes out of a piece of a paper or googling the questions while stuttering. We left the tour after one hour.
I am sorry to write this but this has been the worst tour ever, and I’ve attended quite a lot of waking tours. Our guide was young and her English was not good enough to give a tour even though she was very nice. We literally only walked around the city center and she barely gave some random information without any historical or cultural context. She mainly gave adivices on where to buy things and places to visit on our own. We only I had a little time left in Oaxaca so it felt even more like a waste of our time. Even the route itself didn’t make sense as we walked through the same places both ways without stopping.
The meeting point was unclear and we couldn't do the tour during the day, as we couldn't find it (and no one answered the Guru chat), so we had to book again for the evening one. The guide didn't mention any item of clothing or sign for us to identify her, so it was about intuition. Either Kerenn didn't have any historical knowledge or she's never prepared any historical information to provide during the tour, as we didn't learn anything about Oaxaca's history. Also the stops around the tour seemed kind of random, instead of a planned route, she never briefed us on what we where going to see along the way before we started walking. When asked questions about the little explanations she gave, her answer was mostly "I don't know" or was very brief, indicating a lack of knowledge. I've done plenty of free walking tours and this is not what we expected and how it was supposed to go. Knowing about the origin of the city, a short review of the history, how it developed and the ethnicities that settled in the region and what are its past and current main economic sectors is the bare minimum to start a tour. An explanation of why we're meeting at that point, it's significance and something about the church built there centuries ago, should also be a given. Knowing how many blocks we'll be walking until the next stop is basic, to manage expectations and not to feel we are walking randomly. It felt she was more worried about touching her septum piercing and showing an American accent than providing an experience. She has a long way to go to get to a point were I could recommend her tour. We were also unlucky about the other 3 people that joined us, because one of the guys was making sarcastic and racist comments about the locals, but that's not under the control of the tour provided.
English