Paradise Found in Southern Baja

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Los Cabos, with its string of luxury resorts stretched out along the coastline like a tantalizing silk ribbon fluttering in the Southern Baja desert wind, is as enthralling as a new lover and just as ready to share her treasures. She greets her visitors with a wry smile, a touch of whimsy and the famed Baja intrigue. The reward at Land's End is a rendezvous with some of the world's most exquisite resorts, alive with Baja glamour, featuring some of the finest golf courses in all of Latin America and enough spa pampering to keep a body glowing for days.

The 2-hour flight from San Diego covers a vast landscape of raw open land, steep-sided mountain ranges and hundreds of ancient volcanoes fading into a timeless horizon. Truly, North America's last frontier lies just beyond the border, on an impressive peninsula that stretches some 1,000 miles to the south.
Paradise waits at Land's End, which, in addition to the famous El Arco, boasts a splendid coastline with large sweeping bays that have enticed anglers for more than 50 years. Los Cabos marine life is so rich that in 1973 the Los Cabos Tourism Board declared the area from Cabo San Lucas harbor to the lighthouse at Cabo Falso a national monument. Serious fishermen who have had to make the choice between marital harmony and fishing trips to Los Cabos with the boys and a six-pack of trusty Tecate will tell you the rod and reel won out every time.

The cape, renamed Los Cabos by Mexican tourism officials, is the combined area of Cabo San Lucas and the unspoiled working town of San Jose del Cabo, separated by a 26-mile corridor lined with ocean-view resorts and eight world-class golf courses with gorgeous greens teetering along the coastline. One resident says, "Over the years it seems that each course borrowed from the other, but all eight are beyond fantastico."

A Jack Nicklaus-designed par-71 course, one of Los Cabos' newest, is the centerpiece of the 550-acre upscale Las Villas de Mexico at Club Campestre San Jose. The impressive self-contained gated complex, backed by the largest homebuilder in Mexico, is complete with a Beach Club, 24-hour concierge service and, if the taste buds are tickling, a private chef at the ready. Home rentals, purchasing and trading options, with a choice of 22 destinations within Mexico, are on par with, or even a step above, upscale U.S. offerings.

Not to be outdone, the Cabo del Sol Ocean Course with seven ocean holes--the last three the finest finishing holes in all of golf, according to Jack Nicklaus--is also noted as the best piece of golf property in the world, honored last year as the "Best Course in Mexico."

The One & Only Palmilla Golf Club's 14th hole, also considered among the world's most beautiful golf greens, is a favorite of celebrities such as Billy Crystal, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas. If one's golf swing has suddenly gone north, there is always Los Cabos hospitality, which is a double Margarita with a shot on the side happily offered by the local golf pros.

It took Cabo only a few chili rellenos to realize there might be more to a Baja holiday than hooking a fish or working on the golf game.

The cantinas are a gathering place for sunburned ladies with fluttering lashes and roving eyes who are searching for more than the California gray whale.

Cabo Wabo in San Jose del Cabo, an MTV favorite, has been voted one of the top 10 party rooms in the world. Owned by guitarist Sammy Hagar, formerly with Van Halen, it has its own signature Silver, Reposado and Anejo Tequila, along with extensive dining to calm a rampaging appetite--and, of course, live music till the roosters stir. Dancing allowed.

Nightlife aside, creative chefs abound throughout Los Cabos. Dining aficionados can pop over to San Jose del Cabo, a delightful town that has retained the feeling of old Mexico. The twin-spired Parroquia de San Jose, built on the site of the original 1730s mission and capped with a bell from Spain, dominates the plaza, around which are clustered a select group of distinctive restaurants offering ambience so picturesque it almost seems it could only have been created on the back lots of Warner Bros studios.

Damiana, ensconced in an 18th-century hacienda with a cozy patio, serves classic Mexican cuisine, while nearby arty La Panga offers contemporary Mexican dishes, a consideration for lunch or dinner. Steps away is Casa Natalia, a 16-room European boutique hotel offering dinner in candlelit Mi Cocina, combining European cooking traditions in an alfresco setting with 39 fluttering palms and lovely service.

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