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 Travel & Outdoors | April 2007 
Cabo: Windows to Paradise
 Tom Uhlenbrock - St. Louis Post-Dispatch
| Each suite at Las Ventanas has a wood-burning fireplace and a private terrace. (Tom Uhlenbrock/P-D)
Where to stay: Los Cabos is known for its upscale lodging. The annual average room rate in 2006 was $201 a night, a 21 percent increase from 2005, according to the tourism board. Resorts closer to Cabo San Lucas and San Jose del Cabo offer the best deals. At www.loscabosfirstclass.com, the Riu Palace in Cabo was advertising rates of $186 a night and Desire in San Jose del Cabo had rates of $179. The mega-resorts between the two towns are higher. Rates at the Westin start at $495 and at the One & Only Palmilla range from $475 to $1,600.
Las Ventanas al Paraiso: The only Five Diamond Resort in Baja, the resort prides itself in ultimate pampering for its guests. Rack rates, which can be lower in summer and higher in winter, start at $700 and rise to about $1,000 for one-bedroom suites. One-, two- and three-bedroom suites are available. Call Rosewood Hotels & Resorts at 1-888-767-3966, or visit www.rosewoodhotels.com.
Panchos Restaurant & Tequila Bar: Call 011 52 624 143 0973 or visit www.panchos.com.
For more information: Call Los Cabos Tourism Board at 1-866-567-2226 or visit www.visitloscabos.org. |
Los Cabos, Mexico Dressed for the trip north, the woman dashed around in the early morning light, getting one last snapshot of the pool, the beach and the cloudless sky over Las Ventanas al Paraiso.
"I can't believe we're going back to ice and snow," she said, before heading up the stone steps.
That's the problem with visiting paradise. You never want to leave.
The name means "the windows to paradise" in Spanish, and Las Ventanas al Paraiso bills itself as the premier Five Diamond resort in Latin America, with the longest celebrity client list of any hotel in the world.
No names, though. This is a discreet destination. There's not even a sign outside on Highway 1. Everybody is left blissfully alone amid the quiet serenity broken only by the splashing of a fountain, the chirping of the birds and the lapping of the ocean.
Even the hired help tries to be invisible, moving through underground passages on their way to tidying up your room or fetching fresh towels for the lounges by the pool and on the beach.
With the soft curves of white adobe walls molding a complex of Cubist buildings, the resort brings to mind the villages on the Greek isle of Santorini. But that azure water off the beach is the Sea of Cortez, not the Aegean, and the tourist town of Cabo San Lucas is only a half-hour drive away.
The far tip of the Baja California peninsula was a remote land of jagged mountains, cactus-studded deserts and endless stretches of pounding surf when Hollywood stars like John Wayne and Bing Crosby began showing up in the 1950s on fishing and carousing excursions.
In the 1970s, the Mexican government designated potential hot spots for development, and Cancun, Ixtapa and Los Cabos took off. Earthmovers still chew the landscape of Los Cabos, which means "the Capes." It includes the twin towns of Cabo San Lucas and San Jose del Cabo, and the 20 miles of coastline in between. The $850 million Puerto Los Cabos is the latest development in the continuing building boom. It is causing controversy because of its location next to an environmentally sensitive freshwater estuary.
San Jose del Cabo retains some of the charm of Old Mexico, while Cabo San Lucas, on the western end, has the "fun city" reputation as a spring-break destination and cruise ship stop-off. Along the stretch between the two cities are some of Mexico's most spectacular resorts, including Esperanza and the remodeled One & Only Palmilla, where John Travolta celebrated his 50th birthday in 2004.
Mexican developer Javier Azcarraga opened Las Ventanas in 1997 and sold it in 2004 to Ty Warner Hotels & Resorts, which owns one-of-a-kind luxury resorts throughout the world. It is managed by Rosewood Hotels & Resorts, which also has a worldwide, world-class client list.
The resort prides itself in no-holds-barred luxury for couples. What other hotel has a director of romance on staff? Or will set you up on the beach at sunset with lounge chairs and 50-inch plasma TV for a private screening of your favorite movie under the stars, while "cinema butlers" bring you Champagne and Mexican appetizers?
No wonder heading back to the snow and ice was something of a downer.
Lapping up luxury
So, what's life like in a Five Diamond resort? Well, a guy can get spoiled pretty fast.
A Las Ventanas driver picked me up at the airport in a top-of-the-line SUV, handed over bottled water and a moist towelette to freshen up and drove 20 minutes to the resort. Through the gate onto the grounds landscaped in cacti, a gleaming black Porsche Boxster sat under the portico. You could rent it to tool around Baja for $290 for 24 hours. Hummers and Mini Cooper S convertibles also were available.
With no check-in desk in the open-air lobby, a clerk greeted me by name, handed over a cool fruit drink and led the way along the art-filled hallways to a room, where he traded a credit card number for a key. The room had a terra-cotta fireplace, a telescope for spotting migrating whales, a veranda with a heated soaking pool and an upstairs terrace that was private enough for sunning without tan lines.
The staff could arrange for you to snorkel, scuba dive, deep-sea fish, go yachting, take tennis lessons or golf on a choice of five courses, including an 18-hole course that wrapped around the resort. There was also a sumptuous spa and fitness center, a tequila-and-ceviche bar, two restaurants that served Baja-Mediterranean cuisine and a wine room where you could schedule an intimate candlelight dinner, which was also available in a nook on the beach.
The majority of guests seemed content to laze around the free-form, infinity-edge pool, or swing in seaside shaded hammocks, while "pool butlers" cooled them off with mists of frosted Evian spray.
Life in the high-rent district doesn't come cheap. When Las Ventanas opened a decade ago as the first luxury resort in Los Cabos, its rates of $325 a night were eye-opening. Today, the rack rate for the cheapest of the 71 rooms is $700 a night, with the ocean-view suite going for $970. If you really want to splurge, Las Ventanas recently added three spa suites, where a "spa butler" tends to your needs in a private, state-of-the-art treatment room. The suites include an organic mini-bar, infrared sauna with waterfall, infinity-edge Jacuzzi, squeeze reflexology boots and magnetic mattress.
If you have to ask, rates for the spa suites start at $13,425 for a four-night program for two.
Rattlesnake shots
After two sublime days dozing in paradise, I was ready for some action in Cabo San Lucas. I found Tabasco, a perfect little beach bar with a reggae soundtrack, two-for-one mojitos and a sign that said "Please don't buy any junk from vendors at this balcony."
My first goal was a visit to a landmark, the "El Arco" rock formation, a beautiful arch carved in the cliffs at the end of the Baja Peninsula where the Pacific Ocean meets the Sea of Cortez. A fellow sitting under an umbrella on Tabasco's beachfront rented me a jet ski for $45 and I headed out.
As is the case on most of the streets of Cabo San Lucas these days, there was a traffic jam on the water. After winding through three cruise ships docked in the bay, I found water taxis, kayaks, glass-bottom boats and a catamaran full of partyers blocking my photos of the arch. The seals sunning on a rock ledge didn't seem to mind, barking at the invaders who came too close.
Back on the beach, I was unloading camera gear from dry bags when a sunbather in a baseball cap approached and asked if I was a journalist. "You ought to check out another landmark in Cabo," he said. "My sister and her husband own Pancho's Restaurant. It's really colorful and has been there forever."
He handed me a card that said he was David Ristroph, the "host" at Pancho's. "It has the world's largest tequila collection something like 560," he said. "If you bring a bottle by and we don't have it, we will buy the bottle and also buy you dinner."
Pancho's was on Hildalgo Street in the old section of town and was, indeed, colorful. I was enjoying the ceviche with a sauce of Worcestershire and orange juice when Ristroph strolled in and sought out the bar's expert tequilero, Armando Delgado, to teach a gringo reporter tasting etiquette. You don't gulp tequila down frat boy-style, he said, but savor it like a fine wine.
On the bar sat a large glass jar with two coiled snakes seeping in clear liquid homemade tequila with rattlesnake seasoning at $5 a shot. Nearby was a bottle with a couple of dozen yellow agave worms floating on the bottom. We skipped those and worked our way up to the premium stuff.
"This is the Champagne of tequila. Most of the time we keep it under lock and key," Ristroph said of our final sample. We were sipping slowly when joined at the bar by Alejandra Mata, a young woman recently named the restaurant's manager. She asked what we were trying, and we jokingly pointed to the jar of rattlesnakes. "I'll try that," she said, and we watched wide-eyed as she knocked back a shot.
"Tastes a little gamey," she said.
tuhlenbrock@post-dispatch.com | 314-340-8268 |
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