Mexico // Taxco de Alarcón
Spring Break 2022. Mexico.
Cancun? Not really.
Instead, Taxco! (Well, not just that).
I and my friend Andreas were embarking on our Spring Break adventure with a focus on the second biggest city in America - Ciudad de Mexico - that now counts over 21,000,000 people.
Just to put things into comparison, that’s 1/3 of Italy’s inhabitants, concentrated into a beautiful mixture of squares, hills, gigantic parks, colossal streets, and a sea of colonias populares.
Colonias Populares on our way to Taxco.
After a couple of days of strolling around Mexico’s capital, our time dedicated to Taxco was approaching, and we were as excited as kids.
I came across the beautiful town from a quick research a few days before flying, and it caught my eye right away. I saw a colorful but remote, vibrant but small, culturally rich but also very poor, little town that dominates the hills of central Mexico. I labeled it as a must-see.
So, 6 AM. Backpacks alarmingly overpacked. Ready to go.
To begin with, the 2.5 hours of car ride was an adventure alone.
The fastest way to get to Taxco involved a good hour on the highway. Google Maps (which by the way, does NOT work well when you are outside the United States, or at least in Mexico), gave us a few alternatives. The fastest was about 2.5 hours, and the longest was closer to 4.
The latter looked like a contorted snake in the GPS. Countless turns, hills, and it definitely involved areas without phone connections.
Not exactly the kind of road we wanted to take.
Needless to say, we picked the fastest one, and got on the highway illegally at first - we had to hand a toll worker a few bucks to let us in.
Speechless and (kinda) worried, we did not put give much attention to that.
A glimpse of what’s coming 😬
As we drove, we were getting closer to another toll. We had that gut feeling, deep inside, there some kind of issue was coming our way, but still, we approached it confidently.
As we got closer, a huge red cross appeared on a screen.
A Mexican police officer came close, knocked on the window and:
”Pass required!”
Me and Andreas looked at each others: “Pass?!”
He did not look friendly. If we were there without a pass, that meant that we somehow got in the highway illegally.
We decided to exit at the first right.
The problem, however, was that Google Maps was not working very well. And in the next recalculated route, we found ourselves in the same exact highway. The only difference was that we were trying to get in from a new entrance.
Same story: toll approaching.
Red Cross. ❌
“Pass Required"!
At this point, we were almost losing our hopes and were deciding against visiting Taxco.
BUT.
As we exited the highway, a woman approached us holding something in her hand. She was illegally selling the Pass required to get into the highway.
Our only ticket to Taxco.
We were absolutely ready to pay any price for it, and when she said 500 pesos (about $25), we did not hesitate to say YES! Highway again.
Same story: toll approaching.
Green Check. ✅
“GO!”
I and Andreas exchanged joyful looks at each other: our adventure could officially begin.
2 hours later…
What is this place?
After hours of roads, hills, and empty lands, a busy, marvelous town filled with smiling, busy people, opened up in front of our eyes.
Merchants, locals, kids chasing each other laughing, bakeries, and markets were all somehow concentrated in an intricate map of tight roads and secret passageways. Dangerously uphill roads were climbing up, but locals drove up with broken and hold cars without a care in the world.
A miracle.
There were Maggiolinos everywhere, which we later discovered served as Taxis.
People screamed: “Estacionar??” to any car that passed by, us included.
But we did not listen.
Our gaze was lost in the spectacle that made itself more and more beautiful in front of our eyes.
After some time, we realized that we had to park. As we answered YES to a chubby Mexican guy’s request to park in his garage, he started running with broken flip flops all over town gesturing with his arm to follow him.
He was literally sprinting and dodging people to make sure we followed his pace. I had never seen anything like that.
As we got to the parking, his shirt was SOAKING wet. He took one good minute to catch his breath and he pointed us to the empty spot.
We were walking in an immersive experience made up of countless sounds, colors, and smells. Roads were tight, so drivers literally touched people with their cars as a signal to get out of the way. And locals seemed not to care.
An entire ecosystem of hidden markets was thriving in tight, descending, and almost invisible paths. As a matter of fact, I peeked down the road and discovered it when I moved a curtain that was covering it all.
It was made up of locals selling fruits I have never seen, old ladies knitting and chatting, tacos and burritos stands, and handmade accessories shops. It was an entirely new town that opened up the second you left the main street.
I had to try those fruits. And as always, I was welcomed with some of the most candid eyes and smiles I ever received:
Just look at how much love her gaze is sharing with the world.
Everyone seemed not to care about whoever passed by, but the moment I interacted with them, then I was their only source of attention.
It was a feeling that was new to me.
We had a reservation at a restaurant overlooking the town and were walking in that direction. Look at this:
With filled stomachs, we kept exploring.
Not sure if you can see it from the video above, but there is a huge statue of Christ that dominates Taxco.
We decided that it had to be our next destination.
One minute and 12 seconds after considering climbing up there with a good 40-minute walk under burning heat…
Andreas obviously took his shirt off. But hey, we’re Italians. Let’s make sure people are aware of that. 😂
… we decided to take a Taxi. And thank God we did. It was going to be quite the hike to get to the top.
To the summit, a gigantic statue of a Christ dominated the incredible view.
After contemplating the town from above, resting a little bit in the shade (it was super warm that day), and taking some pictures, we got ready to descend back into the city. Here is the last look at Taxco de Alarcón’s center:
I left Taxco that I was still digesting its marvelousness and unicity.
Processing those few hours of permanence in that magic town took me the entire trip back.
But we did not leave right away.
In fact, we decided to go discover another place before driving back home.
And let me just say….
It was worth it.
But that’s another story.
