Lying Low in Loreto

LORETO, Mexico —  In summer, the billfish come to the Sea of Cortez under the heat of the sun.

We knew about the sun; we learned about the billfish. We also learned about the quite satisfactory state of affairs these days at the one-horse resort of Loreto on the eastern Baja California Sur waterfront halfway between the U.S. border and La Paz.

As sometimes occurs with spontaneous travel, we had to take a chance. To begin with, my wife, Stephanie, and I were not the only ones with the idea of going south into the Mexican seaside desert, stretching out the weekend, reading, romancing in the moonlight and lunching on grilled fish tacos oozing guacamole.

The long-range planners among you were ahead of us--never mind the certainty of sizzling weather for four days in mid-May.

Given a week-and-a-half’s notice, obvious destinations about which we had heard, such as Cabo San Lucas, were heavily booked. So were the most convenient direct flights. Lethargic travel agents were little help.

Then I saw an advertisement. Loreto, it said, was “Baja’s oldest newest resort.”

What I could determine about the place was not encouraging. My colleague and friend, Times travel writer Christopher Reynolds, whom I trust entirely, ventured here in 1993. He had a wretched time. The town of Loreto was unappealing, its single outskirts resort was sullen and lifeless, and the setting absurd: One lonely hotel along broad and empty boulevards where a government-sponsored tourist development had stalled 15 years ago.

We banked hopes on secondhand word-of-mouth that things had gotten better. And they have.

When Reynolds was here, the Loreto resort hotel was the Stouffer Presidente. Two years ago, another in a long string of new owners set about trying to make it a success. Now it is the Eden Loreto Resort, part of a chain with a second hotel in Puerto Vallarta.

Instead of sullen and lifeless, we found it energizing. As for the lonely setting of our hotel in an unfinished development? Why, many resorts sell seclusion at a premium.

For instance, how many more than a couple of Jet Skis do you need buzzing in your ear? Will you regret the absence of para-sailers, or are frigate birds on the glide enough? How awful is it, really, to ride a bicycle down a boulevard landscaped in flowers, trees and cactus without any traffic whatsoever? Or, how does the night horizon twinkling with fishing skiffs compare to the halogen glow of high-rises? At your back, would you rather have a string of other hotels or the shadowy profiles of desert mountains the color of Mars?

So that I don’t create a false impression, I add that this was not a whispery rest home, nature preserve or recovery ward. Our all-inclusive payment ($1,350) covered air fare for two from LAX, airport bus transfers, a room from midday Thursday through midday Tuesday, all our food (three restaurants and a snack bar), an endless supply of drinks (including beer, blender cocktails, wine, robust three-ounce tequila shooters and, oh yes, fruit juice), two pools, a small beach, an even smaller and easygoing clothing-optional beach with its own hot tub and bar, an assortment of bicycles, sailboats, sail boards, foam kayaks, snorkel gear, a soccer field, volleyball court, shuffleboard, championship tennis club, greens fees at a seaside golf course, nightly open-air stage show and a disco throbbing until 2 a.m.

Only those things with an engine cost extra: golf carts, taxis to town and fishing skiffs, locally known as pangas. For example, a one-day fishing trip begins at $120 for boat and guide and $35 more for rod rental, beverages and live bait.

Now to be candid, I know very little about resort life, so this is a beginner’s report. When you earn your living traveling to discover, as I do, then discovery becomes a serious habit. Only later do you realize that you’ve never discovered the arranged escapism of the Baja beach resort.

Yes, they snap a plastic bracelet on your wrist when you check into the Eden Resort to mark you, like an inmate or patient, as one who belongs here roaming the halls. But who would not accept worse indignities for all the free-flowing beer you can drink in the dry 96-degree sun? If, that is, you ever tire of other recreations.

In fact, what persuaded me to take a chance on Loreto was the simple pleasantry of inquiring: I called the tour office of the airline Aero California that books packages. A human answered the phone, not a machine. And to my cautious but willing ear, she seemed convincing. The 16-year-old hotel had been refurbished in the last few years, and the new owners were attracting crowds again. The resort was “adults only,” but all variety of adults would be on hand. The agent had seen this with her own eyes. I would have a swell time.

Naturally I didn’t believe her.

I waited a hour and called back. Different person, same script and attitude.

OK, why not? It was this or nothing.

Had we booked earlier, we could have saved about 10% on the cost of this package. Still, we had no quibble over getting our money’s worth, and neither did others we met here. Perhaps some of the reason was our first experience with all-inclusive pricing, which we found liberating.

And who were these other guests who would come to an adults-only resort with its own nude beach? There were 20ish hell-raisers with washboard stomachs, and potbellied 60ish sun worshipers, couples, singles, straights, a few gays. One large contingent had arrived from Canada. Plenty had come to fish. Our airport check-in was a happy clutter of empty ice chests for taking home fish, oversize tubes for fishing rods, plus piles of golf bags and tennis rackets.

We brought no such things. Our kit contained only books and the five “S’s”: sunscreen, shorts, swimsuits, sunglasses and sandals.

And, as mentioned, shorts and swimsuits themselves became optional on the hotel’s far wedge of beach, screened off by a hedge of flowering oleanders. Perhaps 20% of the hotel’s guests ventured here. And like most such beaches, this one seemed to be an exercise in collective nonchalance, except for three Canadians into whose company I fell. No doubt owing to a scarcity of honest sunshine back home, or the abundance of mosquitoes, they found it uproarious to discover tan lines and observe the red baboon-like effect created by beach chairs on one’s posterior.

In no particular order, our other impressions:

The hotel grounds were lovely and beautifully kept, with hammocks in the shade of palm thickets and sprays of flowers and gardens of cactus. Rooms were air-conditioned and small, with a split-level sitting area and balcony. The noisier rooms overlooked the pool and adjacent sound stage used for the nightly floor show, in which performers from the staff sang and danced according to rotating themes, such as “African Dreams.”

Housekeeping was weak; take a nap and you’ll make your own bed that night. Tacos of fried grouper at the snack cabana were splendid; other food was just about as unremarkable as you might expect at a Baja resort. It made sense to us to graze at the breakfast buffet, which included heaps of fruit; then gorge on fish tacos, guacamole and sizzling salsa just before sunset. We skipped or went light at the dinner buffet or at the smaller Italian and Mexican cafes that required reservations.

Bartenders were generous with servings, and waiting lines seldom formed.. All the hotel staff wore the never-ending smile of the kind that seemed coached and enforced. We put that thought out of mind and smiled back.

Swimming pools were crowded by midmorning. The recreational equipment was limited and has been used hard but was still serviceable. The hotel beach had something of an artificial, constricted feel, protected by breakwaters. Better was the ocean a 15-minute bike ride away. There, you had a choice: a sand beach for swimming or a rock promontory for clear-water snorkeling among colorful tidal fish. Other, more distant diving and snorkeling was available for charter.

Afternoon winds made for nice sailing. Golfers told me the course was long, properly kept and with an abundance of water hazards. They compared it favorably with other desert courses, less crowded but every bit as hot in the sun. The tennis club was strange: 10 courts in a lush garden setting, almost all of them empty. And also hot during the day.

One had the feeling that resort Loreto would exist as we found it only for a while. Eventually, it would either wither in a dust storm of tumbleweeds and failing investment, or the megadevelopers would finally come join in the rush and bring hustle and crowds.

Since we were novices, we asked others for their impressions. In the spectrum of activities resorts, the Eden Loreto was said to be on the mellow side. The mix of young and old guests was unusual, as was a clothing-optional beach anywhere in northern Mexico. Uniformly, the weekenders we met said that despite the short, 90-minute direct DC-9 flight from Los Angeles, they wished they had taken an extra day or two.

*

Quite unlike the resort, which has gone through personality changes over the years, the village of Loreto, 10 minutes and $7 away by taxi, remains reliably unspoiled and drowsy. My friend Reynolds had been unimpressed. Probably because he was having no fun anywhere around here. We found it an agreeable half-day walking excursion through a working fishing village ringed by calm blue water and rough red rock mountains.

But back to billfish.

Loreto is known for two things: the oldest mission in the Californias, and fish. From the moment we arrived, people here talked fishing. They wore fishing shirts and fishing hats. Each afternoon the excitement would rise and sunburned faces would gather around the bar with big smiles and big stories, flexing hands and backs as though they had just had a workout. Dorado. Sailfish. Marlin. This is the season, from April to October.

Stephanie and I are once-in-a-while catch-and-release fly fishers. We had never been tempted to try the deep sea. But we were tempted now.

The next morning at dawn, the two of us are in an open, outboard-powered panga with a guide.

The Sea of Cortez (also known as the Gulf of California) is flat and speckled with coastal islands in the vicinity of Loreto. So despite the brisk trade in fishing charters, we found ourselves in sight of no one else. With the sun at your back, the water is deep translucent blue. Turn around and the surface of the sea shimmers the color of chrome. Manta rays are basking on the surface. One leaps free of the water. Sailfish are gathering in groups, their spiny dorsals breaking water. One of them jumps from the water, too, and seems to dance along the surface on the points of its tail. Pilot whales are breeching on the horizon. The bait on my hook is larger than most fish I’d ever caught.

And then there is something else on the hook.

My friends would later ask, what was it like?

It was like the stories I’d read. I remember the huge forehead clearing the water and a shadowy mouth snapping the bait. Then the screaming heat of the reel, followed by ker-blam splashing sounds across the windless sea. We would see the distant seven-foot sailfish clear the water, then land heavily, and a half-beat later hear the splash. I remember the blaze of the sun, and the huge iridescent swirls in the water as I worked the fish closer. And I remember the sadness in my wife’s eyes as the noble fish was heaved aboard.

Balzar is a Times national correspondent.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

GUIDEBOOK: All-Inclusive Loreto

Getting there: The only nonstop LAX-Loreto flight, one per day, is on Aero California; fares begin at about $220 round trip including tax.

Where to stay: Loreto Eden Resort, Boulevard Mision de Loreto, Loreto, Baja California Sur, Mexico 230880; telephone 011-52-113-30700. Package tours available from Aero California Vacations, 1960 E. Grand Ave., Suite 1100, El Segundo, CA 90245; tel. (800) 524-9191, fax (310) 524-9395. Three-night all-inclusive packages begin at $499 per person for double occupancy, midweek departure. Three-night weekend packages begin at $537. A charge will be added for airport departure taxes, currently $35.27 per person. The package includes food, drinks, hotel, transfers, recreation equipment, golf greens fees and use of tennis courts. Not covered are charter costs for fishing and diving trips or golf cart rental..

Costs for a typical two-person fishing charter: $120 for boat and guide, $10 rental for two rods, $10 for water and drinks, and $15 for live bait.

Getting around: Car and Jeep rental available at the hotel. The resort also provides transportation to the nearby golf course and, for $7, to the town of Loreto. Taxis available.

For more information: Baja California Tourism, 7860 Mission Center Court, Suite 202, San Diego, CA 92108; tel. (800) 522-1516.