Taxco and the 44th Huey Atlixcayotl

After spending 6+ hours in a car on Friday to go to the Forest Expo in Mexico city (for less than 3 hours), I got up early on Saturday morning to go on my 1^st Mexican tour. Really, it was just paying for a bus transport and turned out to be a lot cheaper than paying for the round trip bus ticket. The only bad news, the bus left at 5am and we got slightly delayed when we got pulled over by police at 5:02am. I spent Saturday in Taxco (if that name sounds familiar, I’ve been there a couple of times so the name might be familiar) for some silver shopping (Saturday is the day for the wholesale silver market).

On the last Sunday in the month of September, the town of Atlixco, Puebla celebrates the Huey Atlixcayotl, the 2^nd largest dance festival in Mexico outside of Oaxaca’s Guelaguetza. The festival takes place on the Cerro (Hill) de San Miguel and coincides with the Sunday closest to the saint’s day, September 29^th. Huey Atlixcayotl means the Gran Festival de Atlixo (Altixco’s Great Festival) in náhuatl. After arriving late last year and having to stand, I left a little earlier and was able to get a seat in the 1^st row of the general admission section. The festival features dances from the 11 distinct regions of Puebla, as well as 1 invited state.

Puebla's governor was in attendance and got pulled from his seat on several occasions to dance.





So you've probably seen the following dance before, it's the voladores from the Totonacan region of Puebla and Veracruz. They probably have one of the most impressive traditions of all Mexican dances since they swing down from a pole hanging by their feet. I've seen them a couple of times, but this is the 1st time I've seen something go wrong.






It turns out that after that the voladores' pole is only put up for the festival each year. When deciding where to place the pole this year, someone clearly miscalculated the length of their ropes. Unfortunately as they we almost to the ground, they began to fly into a nearby tree. Most were ok, but the 1st on that crashed was injured and had to be taken out on a stretcher and rushed to the hospital, an unfortuante end to the 44th Huey Atlixcayotl.

Silver in Taxco: One Year Mexico Anniversary

Friday marked my 1 year anniversary in Mexico and so a group of us marked the event by meeting in Taxco, Guerrero for a weekend trip. I had been to Taxco as a jumping off point for the Grutas (caves) de Cacamahuilpa, but had really only seen the town late at night and very early in the morning. Taxco is the center for silver in Mexico and was once home to very rich silver mines. It is built into the hills and so the streets are incredibly narrow (but generally no one way) and seem to wrap their way up the hillside, offering amazing views of the red tile roofs and white washed buildings of the town.

On Saturday we headed to the weekly silver market. What appears to be fairly small and tame from the initial glances opens up into a labyrinth of tiangis (temporary stands) on multiple levels, winding up and down stairs and plastic covered areas, and leading to an overwhelming amount of silver in all directions. By the end of the day, it was impossible to look at another ring or earrings. But, definitely a worthwhile trip for anyone wanting to buy cheap silver. Not that anyone cares, but I was even able to find a necklace with my name on it (for those that have known me for a while, it is virtually impossible for me to find those things…..so think carrie’s necklace in sex and the city).
Silver market (just one section)
One of 2 peacocks that were living at our hotel.

Then on Sunday, after not wanting to see any more silver, we (we had a group of 8) took the cable car up to a nearby hill that has great views of Taxco and the valley. The one in Zacatecas is definitely better, but its still well work the trip.

View from the cable car.
Hotel at the top where the cable car drops you off.

Tepoztlán, Cuernavaca, Taxco, and las Grutas de Cacahuamilpa

I visted places in two new states this weekend, Morelos and Guerrero. Saturday morning I first went to Tepoztlán via Cuernavaca. Tepoztlán is a small town in the middle of some oddly shaped rock formations. It is considered to be the birthplace of the náhuatl language (still widely spoken among some indigenous people) and Quetzalcoatl (extremely important Aztec god). The pyramid of Teoztécatl is located on the summit of the Cerro (hill) del Tepozteco that rises up above the town. Many also consider it to be the center of mysticism in Mexico, and that, along with its close proximity to Mexico City, leads to an interesting mix of people from hippies to tourists (Mexican and foreign) to indigenous people. The temple, up about 1200ft of stone steps, is perched on top of the hill and has amazing views of the valley and the strange rock formations that make up the surrounding hills.

Back in town, there is an old convent with well preserved murals. The archway for the entrance to the ground of the convent and church is made entirely out of seeds and is redesigned every year by local artists.

From Tepoztlán, I backtracked to Cuernavaca, with just enough time between buses to see a couple of the major churches in town.

From there, it was about a 1.5hr bus ride to Taxco. Taxco is an old silver mining town and the heart of silver in Mexico. I have spent a lot of time on buses in Mexico, and for the most part felt safe on all those trips, however, the bus ride from Cuernavaca to Taxco was a little different. Since you are climbing into the mountains, the roads are winding with large drop offs. Our bus driver took these curves faster than I ever though possible without flipping over. Everything was flying out of the overhead bins and honestly I think the bus was on 2 wheels on several occasions, but we arrived in the end. Taxco is a small town with narrow cobblestone streets that twist through town and up and down the hills. The already chaotic streets (think no sidewalks, very narrow, and lots of blind turns) were every more so as a movie was being filmed in town that night and trucks and equipment were having major issues navigating to the center of town.

Sunday morning, after a little more time wandering around in Taxco, I caught a bus to the Grutas de Cacahuamilpa, the largest caves in Mexico, located in a karst area about 50 km from Taxco. Some of the caverns within the caves are over 70 meters tall. The area that is accessible to the public is a 2km (one direction) pathway that leads through several huge caverns and countless gigantic stalactite and stalagmite formations though there are said to be over 70km of passages in the caves.