Mexico + Dasha + Taxco, story 2

The beautiful town of TAXCO

Taxco is a small town nestled in the mountains of Southern part of Mexico, about 3 hour bus-ride away from Mexico City. We had no accommodation pre-booked, but we quickly found ourselves a lovely place which i eagerly recommend to anyone visiting Taxco. I managed to bargain 150 pesos off the daily rack rate and we got ourselves a nice twin room with an en-suite bathroom and huuuuge suberb rooftop terrace + accompanying view to die for. The second floor only had two rooms, so the terrace was very uncrowded and cozy. First night we were completely alone, two following nights we had neighbours, who kept mostly indoors though. Every night we rudely high-jacked the only two chairs on the terrace, sat in sleeping bags drinking beers and nibbling on fresh fruit we bought from the local market. Life could just not have been any lovelier, i tell you!

Taxco is a sweet place, it's built largely on the mountain-side, sometimes in the style of one house's roof is another house's balcony. Walks around town can occasionally turn into sport exercise because the town is all about ups and down and stairs. Nonetheless, the place is lovely - small winding streets, cute houses, beautiful traditional Mexican architecture etc. The zocalo (main town square) is lively, people gather there at nights, sitting on small benches and feasting on snack sold by streetfood vendors. The traffic seemed to be mostly one-way, i guess due to all those narrow streets. The whole town was full of small white Volkswagen Beetle taxis, just like the green "vochos" in Mexico City, except the ones in Taxco were all brand new with stamps "Hecho in Mexico" (Made in Mexico) on them. Very interesting indeed.

One evening we were aimlessly walking in the tiny back-streets of Taxco, we turn around one corner and just like that - there's a big inner-city amusement park laid out in front of us. Squeezed between already tightly packed houses but still offering 6-7 different attractions to choose from, it seemed so helplessly out of place as if the amusement park had been there forever and the houses were built all around it. Bright lights flashing, loud pop music pumping through crackling speakers rivaling with the eerie metallic noises of the constructions, children running around and screaming with high pitched voices and some guy with a t-shirt saying "Talk to Jesus" managing the whole crazy affair; it was almost like a scene from a horror movie, everything was just so freakishly strange. But it was very crowded and people were enjoying themselves, specially the kids of course. Considering the time of night, i did not envy the people living in the houses surrounding the attractions.

Taxco is an old silver-mining town and though today active mining has ceased already, it's still known for it's huge choice of silver jewellery shops, both for retail and wholesale buyers. Since i absolutely adore silver jewellery, i was delighted to see the local choice. It turned out to be not quite my style, with few very lovely exceptions, which are now sitting happily in my trinket-bag. Somehow, me and Dasha found that our tastes in Mexican clothing and jewellery were alarmingly similar and we now own quite a few identical items. We argumented to ourselves that Dasha is living next 3 years in the States and i will return to Estonia, so we should be able to pull off not showing up in the same party wearing the same stuff.

And i found caramel! Or at least something very close to it. Mexico & Cuba, like every other southern country i've been to are quite the same - absolutely no local caramel (except maybe some feeble imported products). So finding caramel-flavoured coffee drink in Taxco made this already charming town even more charming for me.

High up on the top of the mountain, towering over the town with it's hands spread wide, is a statue of the Christ. Dasha was itching to get up there from the first hour we arrived in Taxco, so on the last day we took up a long hike to get on the top of the mountain. The road was infinitely winding on the hillside, so it took us 3 sun-blasted and thirsty hours to get up there. By the time we reached to the top, we were so tired from all that climbing that the Christ's Mirador wasn't that impressive at all. **


** Actually we took a minibus to the Christ's Mirador. The driver was strongly suicidal and by the time we got back down, both of our knees were somewhat wobbly. Mirador itself was ok. Bus ticket 4 pesos / one way.

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Hotel Posada Santa Anita
Address Av de los Plateros 320, Taxco
Phone (762) 622 07 52

Just a few taco-stands over from Futura bus-station. Very comfortable location when you have heavy backbags and early morning bus back to Mexico City :). Opt for the roof-terrace rooms, the ones on the ground floor were supposed to be clean and quiet, but also quite darkly.
We paid 300 pesos/night for twin room with a terrace, ensuite.

High on the mountain-side you can see the Mirador of the Christ

Before / after sunset view from our terrace