Last Stop

Friday, Jan. 16, 2015—Taxco to Cuernavaca

The hotel had a small continental breakfast this morning (served only on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays). We had apple juice, cereal, a toasted waffle with jam and butter, and Mexican sweet bread. Then it was time to head to the bus station. Our bus for Cuernavaca was scheduled to leave at 10:10. The best part of that was that we were leaving the noise and difficulty of getting around Taxco behind us.

Our hotel is the Bajo el Volcan in Cuernavaca. It has a pool and lots of tropical plants. Our room has a patio with a table and chairs overlooking the pool. After checking in, we headed off to take care of the necessary chore of buying our bus tickets to get to the airport on Sunday. We walked to the Pullman Terminal, the bus company that sells tickets for a bus that goes directly the the airport to get them.

Just half a block north of the bus station was a Costco, so we headed there afterward so I could buy some tequila to bring home. While there, we tested the samples and then ate a late lunch.

Cuernavaca is not what I expected. I thought it would be a beautiful and wealthy city. Maybe wealthy people live here in beautiful homes outside the center of town, but downtown is not attractive at all. Any colonial buildings that still exist have not been maintained except for a few important ones such as the Palace of Cortez and the Cathedral. Facing the zocolo are some very ugly, cheaply-built buildings that look to be from the 1950s. The best aspect of the city is the beauty of the plants. It is a tropical garden.

We went to the zocolo in the evening. Unfortunately, it is filled with many stalls and seems more like a market than a plaza. (Note:  The photos at the link do not show the stalls nor the ugly buildings, because no one would ever want to take a photo of them.) However, we went for one particular event. On Friday evenings (and Tuesday and Sunday evenings) they have danzon on the square—the dance from the Veracruz area that we enjoyed seeing last year. The dancers were not dressed as elegantly as the ones in Vercruz, and the music was recorded rather than having a live band. However, some of the dancers were great, especially a young couple who had more elegance and more precision than the others. The music for danzon is really nice—pretty, as well as catchy. I don't know how it has migrated this far from the Gulf Coast, but I wish it would spread even further. Here is another video of danzon in Cuernavaca but not at the zocolo.