Mexico: Taxco, Pacific Coast and Chiapas

From Mexico City we caught a bus to the old silver mining town of Taxco to the southwest. This is a terrific town built on the side of a hill overlooking a forested valley. The narrow, steep streets are clogged with pedestrians and Volkswagons. In Mexico, the majority of taxis are Volkswagon Beetles and the collectivo buses are Combis. We traipsed up the winding alleyways to the top of town where an enormous sculpture of El Cristo has great views of the valley below.

Taxco, silver mining town with colonial buildings

From there we headed for the coast, to a little town just out of Acapulco, Pie de la Cuesta. We discovered that it´s low season so we´re able to bargain for room prices. We stayed at a resort on the beach and sipped cocktails as we watched the sun set over the Pacific.

Horses, Pie de la Cuesta

Mexico is a culinary adventure with cheap tasty food available at any hour of the day and night. It´s a real change from eastern Europe. Most meals come with tortillas and salsa and the obglitory lime, but can also contain beans, meats, seafood, salads, soups, eggs or rice. And the prices are unbelieveably cheap. We´ve been eating like royalty.

Pozole: Corn soup with chicken, pork crackling and avocado

Unfortunately eating is not all good. After some more adventurous meals Luisa developed a stomach bug that required antibiotics and Roger got a cold just as we were leaving Acapulco. We followed the pacific coast for a few days weathering a few days of heavy rain and storms as a result of the hurricane that was luckily on the Carribean coast.

Storm approaching, Playa Ventura

We had a bit of an adventure in Playa Ventura; we arrived on the back of a pickup truck balancing on a pile of watermelons, when we realised a storm was approaching, we were almost out of cash and there was no bank in sight. We spent the night in a wet, dingy "hotel" that accepted Visa (!) as multiple storm clouds passed. We feasted on fried fish and a strange cold seafood soup that they insisted was cooked. At least we didn´t have to squat in someone´s spare room, which was also very kindly offered.

It was a relief to arrive in the touristy/hippie surfing town of Puerto Escondido and find a few comforts. We laid low for a few days to recover in a hostel and met surfers from all over the world. Roger was tempted by the barrelling surf but the recent hurricane had whipped it up into a dangerous state.

VW and sunset, Puerto Escondido

From there we took a couple of days to travel inland to the state of Chiapas famous for its rebel guerrilla movement who fight for indigenous rights. For this reason you see many old gringo hippies who look like they have been there a little too long. San Cristobal de la Casas is in the southern highlands of Mexico. Here there is excellent locally grown organic coffee for sale and cosy cafes with fireplaces where you can get dry and warm after each afternoon downpour.

San Cristobal de las Casas

Artist, San Cristobal

It's election time in Mexico and the candidates are campaigning heavily. It's easy to buy votes here. All you have to do is give away a few brooms:

Buying votes with brooms

We visited the Mayan medicine museum and learned about how they use soft drinks such as coke to induce burping, which apparently expels bad spirits.

Pagoda, San Cristobal