Taxco is a town of three dimensions, perched on a mountain slope so steep that the highest parts of the town are 600 ft above the lowest parts. -Joan Mark

Three weeks in an Italian hill town for $600? Well, it isn’t actually Italy, but the experience hasn’t been significantly different, except for the budget price. Taxco, the steepest of the Mexican hill towns, has filled the imagination of artists, designers and visitors for years. Its beauty brings tears to my eyes every time the bus rounds that final curve of the highway, and I see the town cascading down the mountainside.

The first time I visited, I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was as if someone had spilled a can of white paint down the mountainside. As you draw closer to the town along the winding highway, you begin to make out church steeples punctuating the sea of red tiled rooftops.

You enter the main part of town by crossing under Los Arcos, the remnants of an aqueduct that was once part of a silver compound that belonged to Hernan Cortez. The only flat road in Taxco swerves left and right following the contours of the mountain until you get to the bus station in the center of town.

It’s an obscene place for a station as there’s hardly enough room for the road and the buildings that line it. In order for the bus to enter the station, an attendant must stop traffic in both directions, and the bus has to jockey into whatever space is available. Sometimes the buses already in the station have to shimmy back and forth to accommodate the newest arrival.

Once you disembark, your journey has just begun. As I said there is only one flat street in town, and any departure from that street requires ascent or descent of 25 degrees. Remember that this town is built onto a mountainside, and no accommodation was made for climbing it. Imagine hiking straight up the side of a mountain instead of approaching it on switchbacks. The steep hills are so famous that the Taxco downhill mountain bike competition is held here annually.

The purpose of the cobblestone streets may be to increase the traction for cars, especially on rainy days, but it does nothing to assist getting rolling suitcases up the hill. We were able to squeeze into one of the local vochos only by putting a suitcase on each of our laps. Fortunately, most of the taxis have removed their passenger seats so that you can fit more of your things.

Vochos are the local name for the VW bugs that serve as Taxco taxis. In all likelihood, Taxco has the highest concentration of VW beetles in the world! Their small size allows them to maneuver through the narrow streets of Taxco, like a mouse in a maze. There seems to be an unwritten set of rules that all the vocho drivers understand when two of them meet at a place where only one can pass, and I’ve never seen them get mad or honk at the other. Or maybe it’s just the relaxed nature of the Taxquenian people.

Unfortunately, the main square was closed, and our driver was forced to let us out three blocks from our hotel. Imagine being left at the bottom of a 100 foot hill with only a stone pathway to the top. In our case, that pathway was bounded on each side by buildings, and we had to navigate the steep stone covered channel in the between buildings while yielding to the occasional vehicle sharing the narrow channel with us. I’ll be honest, I was pretty worried Joan was going to hate this place even before we even arrived at the hotel!

Fortunately, once we entered the oasis of Casa Spratling and grabbed a drink at the Cafe, a smile spread across her face. From our table we could look down the narrow street we’d ascended earlier at one of the two towers of the main cathedral in Taxco. Joan commented that I was right in comparing it to Europe.

We’ve spent most of our time in Taxco balancing work with exploration. Joan has been enjoying her location independent life as a writer and content creator, something she conceived to support her new lifestyle. I have been writing my travel stories and planning for upcoming tours.

During our breaks from work, we walk the town’s meandering main road, where we struggle to understand how anyone can make a living here when every storefront lining the street is a silver shop. There must be hundreds of them selling the exact same thing. It’s like when you go to a grocery store and have to select from 15 varieties of milk.

Apart from the silvershops, people come here to visit the Santa Prisca church or hang out in the main square in front of it. There’s a gazebo surrounded by benches under shade trees that facilitate socializing with family and friends as vendors pass by selling treats or, if it is to be believed, more silver!

I’ve spent a couple days on one of those benches practicing my sketching, but the noise of the square soon becomes overwhelming. Fortunately, it’s easy to escape the cacophony of the Zocalo (town center) by simply walking one of the many steep staircases leading up or down from the square.

It was nice to have the time to experience the place for more than just a short visit. I learned my lesson after I brought my first tour group here for a day trip, and they commented that it should be a multi-day trip. To that end, we’ve been piecing together unique experiences for future tours here.

One day, we walked to the Teleferico, which is a gondola that takes you to the top of Monte Taxco. The views from the gondola and the mountain are stunning. At the top is a one block long quaint shopping village which leads to the luxury Monte Taxco hotel. I’ve never stayed here because it’s too far from town, but it is a great place to come for brunch or dinner as you can enjoy your meal overlooking the swimming pool and the whole city.

If it turns out you’re acrophobic, you can choose the contrasting experience: In the middle of town is an abandoned silver mine. You have to pay for a guided tour, but it’s worth the money as the guide gives you a lot of information about Taxco’s mining history and this mine in particular. Apparently it was rediscovered by accident.

People kept hitting their head on a beam as they passed through a hallway of the hotel so they decided to lower the floor. While digging down, they discovered a large mine, and now they offer tours. In case, exploring underground is not your thing either, you can anesthetize your phobias with the free alcoholic beverage that is included at the end of the tour.

The drink is clearly to get you to eat at the restaurant, but if you plan your visit right, it’s a great place to have lunch or dinner with a stunning view of Taxco. Like my hometown of San Francisco, it’s impossible to look any direction in Taxco without lifting your camera to catch yet another spectacular vista.

With just one week left in Taxco, we looked at any other activities we wanted to do. Listed on sign placards around town were places like 1000 waterfalls, Cacahuamilpa caves, and Blue Pools. We looked at Tripadvisor to see if the reviews matched the advertisements.

1000 waterfalls required a 4×4 which we didn’t feel like renting. The caves looked amazing, but to a degree, once you’ve seen one cave, you’ve seen them all. I’ll note one exception to that is the Skocjan caves in Slovenia which are the largest caves I’ve ever been in. You are able to look down 1000 feet at other tourists walking through them. The reviews of the Cacahuamilpa caves didn’t suggest they would be a better experience.

The blue pools looked the most promising in the pictures, but the reviews said it all: “There were actually only a couple of them” and “they were crowded with lots of vendors and black plastic hoses running all over the place.” This is a fairly common experience at most of the waterfalls I’ve visited in Mexico. They’re usually heavily developed with vendors, although I’ve never been able to figure out the ubiquitous plastic hoses draping down the sides. Maybe they supply water to people downstream.

In the end, we decided on a more catered experience and signed up for a coffee plantation tour and tasting through AirBnB experiences. It turned out to be the most unique of the experiences I’ve encountered. Like grape growing is to wine, bean growing is to coffee, and we were overwhelmed by the effort Ernestina and her family put in to create and run the business. We made the mistake of accepting a cup of coffee before we headed home, and after trying for an hour to take a nap, we headed out for lunch instead.

Since we arrived in Mexico, we’ve both been trying intermittent fasting, where you eat during an 8 hour period each day and you fast the other 16. It was pretty impressive how quickly we found that not only did we eat one less meal each day, but we saved money in the process. We decided to make lunch our big meal each day and have a salad for dinner. As a treat, lunch is always something we eat out, which gives us the opportunity to go for a walk each day and try a new place.

Unfortunately, we discovered that despite there being many restaurants in Taxco, they offer much variety. It wasn’t long before we came to see the same choices on every menu, and it only took us a few days to try all the specialties of Taxco. We were lucky to find a couple of exceptions that became revisits, like Mente, which offered bowls, smoothies and salads filled with clean and organic fruits and vegetables.

Because of the limited food offerings in Taxco, I’m really looking forward to our next destination, Puebla. It is a large suburb of Mexico city and promises a lot more in terms of cuisine as it is where many of Mexico’s city’s wealthy come to retire. I look forward to this variety as I quickly tire of the corn and meat based diet here, no matter what sauce you put on it.