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 Travel & Outdoors | August 2006 
Bliss in a Mexican Hideaway - Hotelito Desconocido
 Ann Rickard - Sunday Telegraph
| | Suite stuff ... each palafito has its own distinctive decor, modeled after the Mexican lottery which uses images rather than numbers. | 
| | Path to peace ... the garden setting of Hotel Descondido which was built in the style og a Mexican fisherman village. | 
| | Water views ... an oversized terrace in a master suite makes the perfect place for cocktails. | 
| | No molestar ... do not disturb sign on the rustic door of a suite at Hotel Descondido. |
"We don't have children here in this resort – we make children here." So said the general manager of the Hotelito Desconocido in Mexico.
It's corny, I know, but this place really is all about making children – it's the isolation, the serenity, the romance.
Who knows how many babies have been conceived here by the light of a hundred candles, beneath the filmy mosquito nets on the soft, king-sized beds with the sound of lapping water on the doorstep?
Hotelito Desconocido is about luxury without lights, hedonism without artifice, indulgence without kitsch. It is not a place for children. Couples only are welcome here and no one is about to apologise for it.
Perhaps one of the top five most romantic places in the world, it isn't surprising that Hotelito Desconocido – on Mexico's Pacific Coast, two hours and a lifetime south of brassy Puerto Vallarta – is frequented by honeymooners and lovers, and sometimes by burnt-out corporate high-flyers who just want to escape to a quiet place where electricity and mobile phone reception are unknown quantities.
We are neither honeymooners nor burnt-out executives. But we are travellers and, after two jarring weeks of noise and wet-season steam in Puerto Vallarta, we've escaped down here.
Part of the Small Luxury Hotels of the World group, Hotelito Desconocido is nestled on a wetland estuary between the Sierra Madres mountains and the Pacific Ocean. It is one of the most important sea turtle and bird reserves in Mexico.
On 40ha of estuaries, the palm groves, fruit trees and lush gardens thrive. If ever there was an example of caring for the natural habitat without compromising guests' comfort, then this is it.
Solar is the power here, and then used only for hot water for showers and cooking. Night light is provided by candles and flares – hundreds of them.
Accommodation is in palafitos – a type of bungalow of indigenous construction. Twelve of these palafitos are perched on stilts bordering the estuary. Guests sitting on their little balconies over the water tend to pinch themselves a lot to ensure they really are here, really this fortunate to be in such a wondrous place.
The remaining palafitos are on a broad sandbar with views over the ocean. Our palafito is ocean side – there has been quite a lot of self-pinching on our verandah in front of the rolling surf.
The only way to the sandbar is across the estuary by rowboat. No matter what time of day or night we've approached the little boat, an obliging rower has materialised from nowhere, ready to paddle us across to the palapa-topped restaurant and back again.
It's tempting to do nothing but daydream here, but there is the prospect of wistful indulgence by the saltwater pool with a book (a romance novel, surely?) or, if we feel up to it, horseback riding along 64km of virgin beach. Other options call: a hammock by the ocean's edge in the afternoon, perhaps? Or the large day-bed beneath the palapa roof on the verandah?
If we feel the need for further pleasures, there are soothing hands willing to pamper us in the spa across the estuary. The choices, the decisions!
In the evening, after a shower under clear skies in our al fresco but private bamboo-fenced shower, we follow a candle-lit path in the sand to be guided up candle-lit steps to dinner in the open-sided restaurant illuminated by candles.
They're everywhere – on the floor, on shelves, on steps, in alcoves, on tables and bar tops. Soft, flickering candlelight flatters and surrounds us, and the sweet natural noises of the night are all the musical entertainment we need. Halfway through dinner our whole world becomes a safe cocoon as the choral society of cicadas and frogs serenade us.
It's about now that we wonder if we should have requested the matre d' to set up a table for two – as that couple out there on the water has – on a floating platform surrounded by candles reflecting on the water in the moonlight.
Yes, we agree languorously as we watch the rower take out course after course to the lucky couple, we definitely should have asked. "We'll do it tomorrow night," we said and drank a toast.
Later we asked our waiter to arrange it. "Of course. Or if you prefer, we can arrange a table for two on top of the tower for you and surround you with candles. Our staff will deliver your food up there. It's very romantic."
Starry-eyed, we were rowed once again to the sandbar and, after a moonlight beach stroll, we sashayed back to our ocean-front palafito where the room fairies had been in, lit oil burners and candles, pulled back covers, untied the gossamer mosquito net.
At dawn, we awoke to the dramatic sound of crashing waves, and lazily reached out from the big bed to raise a nearby little flag through the palapa roof.
Within minutes, a waiter rowed hot coffee to our door and asked if we would like to go birdwatching.
"But, of course," we said, and giggled at the ludicrous indulgence of raising a flag to have coffee rowed to our bed.
More than 150 species of birds live in the area and we wanted to see just some of them. It would be our only activity for the day; hammocks and massage tables would soon clamour for our attention.
The tireless rowboat man emerged from nowhere again, and in the dawn light as he dipped his oars into the still water with just the smallest of splashes to take us deep into wooded areas teeming with birds, we started that pinching thing again. |
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