Mexico’s Cabo, Fantasy Island Style

If you’re already thinking about what to do with yourselves for the holiday season, might I make a little suggestion?  Las Ventanas al Paraiso in San Jose del Cabo, on Mexico’s Baja Peninsula.

The trick will be wrenching yourself away from this diabolically full-service resort and back to the drudgery of your everyday life.

Adam and I spent a few days here for our anniversary a few years back, and have pined for it ever since.

The whole place is designed for peace and relaxation. Almost entirely whitewashed, it has only a few touches of color: some blue-striped fabrics; lights made of elaborate tin starbursts; outdoor dining rooms with palm-frond roofs; pounding, turquoise surf; and sunsets that could make you weep. Oh, and an infinity pool that blends just so with the horizon line of the Pacific.

Thing is, as gorgeous as it was in the dry heat of August, it’s apparently lush and green by winter. We didn’t really appreciate this concept until we took a guided stroll on horseback through the nearby desert; the beige, rocky landscape, studded by cactus and bizarrely long-eared rabbits, was a month or so shy of turning cooler, verdant and sprinkled with wildflowers.

Far from an authentic Mexican experience, Las Ventanas is more like a jungle-free version of Fantasy Island.

Nowhere was this more apparent to us than coming and going. Our cab ride in from the airport was dirty, dusty, and friendly, offering views of beach shacks, chickens, mechanics, and taco stands; our ride back, from a staff driver in a resort-owned SUV, took us down a private toll road that wended its way through a quiet, stunning valley with no signs of human life. If you have the resort drive you each way, you’ll entirely miss the reality just outside the wrought-iron gates.

However, Las Ventanas is staffed by locals who are happy to tell you all about their area, and serves the Baja region’s delicate, seafood-based cuisine, excellent produce, and dark, resposado tequilas. So the good news is, it’s not entirely without…Mexicality.

Still, our experience was more gringo than not.

Because of our special occasion, we were upgraded to a massive suite with a full kitchen, living room, large balcony, two bedrooms, and two bathrooms.  It was a ridiculous amount of real estate for two people, to be sure; but, the second bathroom really came in handy when Adam was served a glass of mistakenly sun-baked Bailey’s after dinner one night…and spent several sad, late-night hours getting sick.  Thankfully, Fantasy Island has a couple of pools, a spa, and lot of people whose mission it is to take care of you.

Our first hour at the large central infinity pool, we scoffed at the pampered guests who dared not touch their own sun umbrellas or get their own icy neck towels. By the second hour, we reached up to shift our umbrella and were politely put back in our lounge chairs by a magically-appearing young staffer whose job it was to anticipate our every desire.  By the third hour, all righteousness was lost.

To avoid becoming a human sloth, it’s probably best to keep your stay here short.

Come to think of it, though, we didn’t always do absolutely nothing. I remember wading to the swim-up bar for fresh mango margaritas, where there’d always be extra mango to munch upon. Now and again, too, we’d wander up to the ceviche cafe for a snack. Oh, and we read books. And discovered a private pool closer to our room. And a hammock on the beach.

The surf here is too powerful to allow swimming, but a stroll along the powdery sand late in the afternoon will ruffle your hair like a model in a magazine shoot. At night, dining with a view of the ocean, you can see a whole sky full of stars.

You should definitely treat yourself to something at the spa. It uses all sorts of things you’ll find in the surrounding desert — like aloe, clay, and sage — and offers heavenly bath soaks and essential oil rubdowns. I swear on my life, I had a foot massage that took me back to my birth.

It’s important to know that in such a gated-community kind of place, you’re bound to run into a few celebrities…and a few people you might not want to run into in a dark alley.

We apparently share an anniversary with Nuno Bettencourt, the Portuguese-American guitarist for still-kicking 90s rockers Extreme (on their site, Nuno’s the second guy from the left), and his wife, Suze DeMarchi, former singer for the 90s Australian hard rock group Baby Animals; it was a vacation treat to while away an afternoon hanging in the pool with people who are kind and funny, but way out of our coolness league.

(By the way, it turns out that Extreme just put out an album in August, and that Baby Animals are talking about, much like the Blues Brothers, getting the band back together.)

Far more likely to gun down baby animals was the guy Adam met in the sauna at the spa.

A seemingly-jaded, preternaturally tanned South African oil magnate, this guy was happy to hold forth about his many homes and latest business venture:  a big game preserve that offered drive-up shooting and murderous helicopter tours of the savannah. Maybe it was the sauna heat talking, but Adam told me he was pretty sure he’d just met the devil.

Now, aren’t you intrigued what kind of humanity you’ll encounter on Fantasy Island?  And which of your wishes will be granted?  And how fast you’ll get used to smiling young people bringing you refreshments just as you’ve thought to want them?   Ah, Las Ventanas…we miss you.