Extraordinary Places

There is nothing extraordinary about going on vacation to Mexico. But Mexico is an extrordinary country. If not for a historic fluke, we would be living in Mexico today. The Mexican-American war ended with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848. As a result, Mexico ceded to the United States area, which consists of present day California, Nevada, most of Arizona and half of New Mexico. The annexation of Texas occurred two years earlier. The length of the border with the United States is 1,954 miles (no wonder Donald Trump wants to build a wall – it can be very profitable business). But even the remaining part of Mexico is huge. It is almost= three times the size of Texas, about half size of Russia, slightly smaller than China and more than twice the size of the European Union. Besides many natural resources, Mexico has beaches, which are popular tourist destinations. In the past, we visited Cabo San Lucas, which became very developed and touristy in recent years. This year, my wife Elfa got a time-share exchange for a week in December in San Jose del Cabo, at the Grand Mayan Resort. We visited this town before on day trips on previous vacations to another “Cabo” (which means “cape” in Spanish); but as we were staying in San Jose Cabo on this trip, we had time to explore and to discover the area. Our resort was located toward the end of the hotel strip bordering the beach of the Sea of Cortez, which is beautiful but has dangerous surf. Therefore, swimming and typical water activities were not permitted. However, there is something very unusual there – a bird sanctuary. It was located a fifteen minutes walk from our resort on the beach and it was magical (particularly, if you like to watch and photograph birds, like I do).

Every morning I would go on very long walks, and since there were not many people and activities on the beach, the birds served as good models. Before coming here, our friends who come here every year gave us some recommendations. One of them was to visit Villa Valentina, which was developed by a husband and wife team, and in the last 20 years, has become one of the extraordinary places on my list. It is a compound consisting of a small hotel, coffee shop, art gallery and a marvelous antique store. The family members all run it. One day, I came here at the end of my walk to have a cup of tea and I met delightful owners Daniel and Juliet.

There are many restaurants here offering typical Mexican food, especially in the old town, which is a conglomerate of galleries and jewelry stores, all catered for the tourists. But one day I stumbled into a health food store. There I learned about Flora Farm, where we could have lunch, but it was a ten-minute drive, on a dusty, unpaved road.

When we got there, we were really surprised to find an oasis. It was a truly extraordinary experience. The meals were prepared from the food grown right next to you. A very talented saxophone player, David, delighted us with beautiful music, as we savored our experience. While driving on the dusty road we noticed a small wooden sign with the word ACRE pointing past the” Flora Farm”. I was curious, so we went to investigate. When we got there, we discovered a concrete road that twisted among a newly planted vegetation, and lead somewhere from the parking lot. The mystery was ahead of us. After climbing up some wide steps, we entered an open space which was the brand new restaurant to be opened that night. We made reservations for dinner, not knowing what to expect. It was not just a dinner – it was an extraordinary experience. The restaurant is named ACRE, since it is located on 25 acres off of the farmland. Everything on the menu is locally organically grown. The fish of the day is caught and served on the same day. They also prepare goat and chicken dishes, which were grown on neighboring farms. Besides a very friendly ambience, the food prepared by the very talented chef Kevin Luzande and his staff, whose prior experience was at well-known restaurants in Los Angeles, was amazing. For us, it was no-brainer – the next day we were back for another culinary experience. We returned again the next morning, before our flight home for a personalized tour of the farm (they do not serve breakfast or lunch there, yet). You will learn about this unusual experience in the next week of “My Encounters”.

P.S. Since the bird sanctuary was the first one of my encounters with the extraordinary places in San Jose del Cabo, I am sharing some of my bird images here.
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