Taxco

We have been busy little bees, after spending a couple days twisting through the mountains we ended up in the top of a mountain in the city of Tasco, the silver city of Mexico. There are over 1500 silver shops in the city and I managed to visit a few, being the big shopper that I am. Another thing there is a lot of here are Volkswagen bugs, they are used for taxis here, they are the perfect vehicle for the steep cobblestone streets. We decided not to even try driving to the main square like we usually do and got a hotel on the main drag, these streets are not good for riding on bike. As is turns out we are a steep 5 minute walk to the Zocolo and the exercise is always good. These streets are so narrow here on some of the corners even the bugs have to back up and inch their way around. We hired a taxi, $50 peso for 20 minutes, which actually turned into 30 minutes(Mexicans have no sense of time)what a ride. It was the next best thing to a roller coaster ride!

We decided to take in a little tourist activity while we are here(besides the silver shops)so we took a 35 km drive to The Cacahuamilpa National Park. Cacahuamilpa derived from the words, cacahuate(peanut), milli(seed), and pa(in). So the word literally means in the seed of a peanut, which is good way to describe the caverns, the only difference being these caverns are over 2 km in with a ceiling height on close to 350 mt. These are to largest in the Americas. In February there are tours in the subterranean rivers which we would have loved to have taken but...next time.

Today we are off and riding again, after a couple days rest we are again on the road and putting in some more miles to our destination of Oaxaco.

Tasco by day.

Yes, this is a two way street in the city, it might actually be a little wider than most.

This picture is a bit blurry but it can give you an idea as to how steep the streets are.

Tasco by night.

Caves at National Park Cacahuamilpa. That's Ken siluette off to right of the picture.

These caves are huge!