gringo syndrome
ON A RECENT TRIP DOWN MEXICO’S Baja Peninsula, fatbiking through arroyos and sand washes as the Vizcaino desert sprung into a brief full bloom, we were killing time in the van listening to Jared Diamond’s “Guns, Germs and Steel” while driving through the emptiness between destinations. There’s a part in the book where Diamond relates the differences in how people greet each other based upon their cultural evolution and illustrates this by describing how generations ago in the highlands of New Guinea, when two strangers met on a trail, they were faced with three options: run from each other, prepare to fight
