Taxco | Inescapably Rational

Eat, Drink, Party, Shop!

Hotel Los Arcos

I’m not sure how I selected this place but it turned out to be perfect. While there is no quiet spot in Taxco on a weekend, the location, just around the corner and down the hill a bit from the zocalo, was ideal. The room was large and comfortable and the central patio peaceful and picturesque. On the roof is a large terrace with gorgeous views of the town, which stretches way up the mountain and down into a valley. Walking this town requires stamina (it’s at around 6,000’), good shoes, and strong thighs and knees. We loved it.

Bufy (pronounced boo-fee) is a former street dog who is now under the protection of the hotel. Dogs are allowed everywhere; this hotel, which seems to be operated by a group of women as we never saw a man working there, has a sign at the front desk listing restaurants which are dog friendly. We saw a fair number of street dogs, maybe 5-10 all told, which were calm and well treated. In fact we saw Bufy around the zocalo and out and about, often on his own but sometimes with someone from the hotel on an errand. Dog food and water bowls are all over the place.

Food highlights

Well, the food in general in Taxco is as delicious and inexpensive as elsewhere in Mexico but a few meals and restaurants stand out.

We had two fantastic, and typically enormous, breakfasts of chilequiles with eggs. The restaurant that serves in the hotel patio is terrific and highly recommended for convenience, service, delicious food. One of the “jams” they serve is a sweet chipotle that was memorable…not spicy, just a smoky, just sweet enough condiment. For the view—though the servings were overwhelmingly large so eating was almost discouraging, we went to Del Angel, a hotel behind Templo de Santa Prisca, the huge central church on the zocalo. The restaurant has several outdoor terraces, all with sweeping vistas of the town. Don’t get me wrong, the food was great—but entirely too much for a normal human being to consume in the morning.

Seriously, after fresh juice and pastries, all part of the shockingly inexpensive paquete (like the Japanese breakfast sets), could you eat that entire serving of chilequiles?

Two of our three nights in town we went to La Bendita, a small cantina-like place for drinks and small plates such as tacos, tostadas, quesadillas. The ceviche tostadas were what called us back for a second time, and I highly recommend the chicharron pescado (fried fish) tacos as well. My mojito(s) were delicious, and both nights David had the liter of beer. Sitting at a tiny table on a tiny balcony overlooking the zocalo madness was entertaining. The second evening the moon rose over the bell towers to give us a magical picture.

Finally, on the Taxco food front, we went to the famous Tia Calla, a basement level pozoleria. David isn’t a big fan of pozole but I am—and he had the chalupas, four little tortillas with chicken and chipotle. By the end of his snack he said his mouth was tingling but they were not the killer heat we know from chipotles in the US. The pozole was the best I’ve had.

Plata

I really wanted to be in town for the Saturday market, a truly insane explosion of silver puestos (little stands) that seemingly filled every bit of space in the town—buildings that were closed on Friday opened to be consumed by hundreds of vendors each with approximately a card table’s worth of display. While many vendors sell the same things, as you walk each aisle you see that from one to the next they have a particular type of jewelry or a distinct style. My plan was to leave with enough pairs of earrings to last me for years, and I did. We also bought a few little gifts which will not be shown here as we want to surprise the recipients. The prices are absurdly low and the experience always “muy linda.” I had tried to describe Saturdays to David—there are always hundreds of vendors in stores and on the streets in Taxco—but he was shocked at the sheer level of commercial enterprise.