MEXICO | LODGING
In Mexico, American-run B&Bs offer bang for the peso
The bed-and-breakfast prices are still moderate, but oh, the luxuries. Try hourlong facials, upscale surroundings and special dinners.
Casa Obelisco in San Francisco, a little fishing village on the Nayarit coast of western Mexico, is not your typical B&B.
Its four balconied rooms feature king-sized beds. The tiled baths are private, with twin sinks. And at one end of the pool, bar stools are bolted to the bottom. That's where my wife, Diana, and I spent time, plopped in water up to our midriffs, sipping margaritas.
But that wasn't the end of the luxuries the B&B offered.
"For $75, would you like a private candlelit Champagne dinner for two on the roof?" asked our host and Casa co-owner, John Levens. "Just the two of you under the stars! For another $75, the chef will bring along a guitarist to sing 'Besame Mucho' while you dance the night away. Or perhaps, for $50, you'd like an hour's massage in your room?"
Casa Obelisco — built by two Silicone Valley couples, John and Judi Levens and Bill and Barbara Kirkwood — was our introduction to bed and breakfast, Mexican-style.
Usually run by folks from the U.S. and Canada, Mexican B&Bs retain typical B&B virtues: moderate rates, great breakfasts, cleanliness, attractive decor and down-home friendliness. But they have also gone upscale in a big way.
Helped by a favorable exchange rate (about 11 pesos to the U.S. dollar) and low-cost labor, Mexican B&Bs offer luxuries usually found at high-end U.S. hotels, but at far lower prices: High-speed wireless Internet connections for your laptop, two-hour facial massages for just $20, rubdowns in seaweed body wrap and breakfast in bed. They'll even help plan weddings.
In Puerto Vallarta, we watched as the staff at Casa Mirador B&B produced a clergyman, photographer and sculpted cake for the beachside union of a Seattle couple.
Some B&Bs have incorporated local culture and influences into their décor and amenities. At Ignacio Springs B&B in San Ignacio on the Baja California peninsula, for example, guests can sleep under a thatched roof. Other B&Bs are in the haciendas of working horse farms or walled-in colonial houses, or are showcases for modern Mexican architects.
John Truax, a former Houston resident, restored a crumbling 202-year-old town house in Mérida in the Yucatán peninsula. The four-bedroom Ángeles de Mérida B&B features 18-foot living room ceilings and is filled with Spanish antiques and Maya artifacts. Like many Mexican B&Bs that have been exquisitely decorated, Truax caters only to adults. "No persons under 17, please," he says.
But for families with children, even pets, Mérida has In Ka'an ("My Heaven" in Mayan), a ranch-style B&B with seven ground-floor bedrooms.
"Ours is a put-your-feet-up-and-relax place," says owner Bonnie Wrenfall, a former Canadian banker. She will pack lunches for guests headed out to tour the Maya ruins. There's a lap pool for sweaty returnees and cable TV for news junkies.
On Cozumel, 12 miles off the Yucatán peninsula, Baldwin's Guest House, a five-bedroom B&B owned by British Columbians Dale and Kathy Gardner, is also family-friendly.
At Amigo's, also in Cozumel, owners Bob and Kathy Kopelman, former New Yorkers, offer diving packages from May 1 through the beginning of the winter high season at their three-cottage B&B. For $205 per person, double occupancy, a couple gets three nights' lodging, three breakfasts and two days' scuba diving with an English-speaking master diver, tanks and weights. The cottages have kitchenettes.
In areas where B&Bs cluster, competition keeps most rates around $40 to $90 per day for a double room. Daily rates tend to be higher in less competitive areas, such as Tlaquepaque, a suburb of Guadalajara, which is Mexico's leading craft center.
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