The same day that my friend Paloma and I went to Xochicalco in the state of Morelos, we went to a little city (a town really) called Taxco in the state of Guerrero (yes! I have finally been to Guerrero, the state where it is the most difficult for archaeologists to work in Mexico- there are some people in Guerrero that do not want their ancient sites excavated, examined, etc. although of course, some of those sites have been excavated, examined, etc. and there are people in other states as well that do not want archaeologists to work but two of my professors say that Guerrero is the worst for rejecting outsider archaeologists). Anyways, I took this first picture from my seat on the bus just to show that it was really early to be traveling but it was a pretty morning. So Taxco is supposedly named thus because of the Spaniards and their silly pronunciations of indigenous words. The Aztecas (really the Tenochca Mexica) had allegedly established a place in the northwest of what is today known as the state of Guerrero and named it Tlacho (which is supposedly a derivative of the word for ball game in Nahuatl- I would need to verify that one!). So the Spaniards did their best, I suppose, and named the place Taxco. It became a colonial haven for silver mining and has some great silver jewelry stores (present-day of course; during the first colonial decades, I'm sure most of the silver didn't stay in Tlacho, I mean Taxco). It was a nice and charming town and I enjoyed the day. A few of the pics are of the marketplace and just from walking around the town.
The majority of buildings in Taxco are these whitewashed buildings with the orange/red tile rooftops. It's a charming town that sits on the mountainside. You can barely make out the big jesus in some of these photos; he watches over the whole city.
Here are a few more pictures from around Taxco. I just had to get some pics of the Big Jesus overlooking all of Taxco (at least I'm pretty sure it's a statue of Jesus!). Also, the church that sits on the zocalo is very pretty and rather large. Its name is Santa Prisca (a 250 year old baroque-style church) and the entrie zocalo really focuses on this building. It was a beautiful day to be in Taxco, although perhaps a bit overcast for a little bit of the day; we did spend like almost seven hours here and there wasn't a whole lot to do, but it's a cute town and has some gorgeous silver jewelry!
