Tecate, Baja California

I am back home after a week at Rancho la Puerta in Tecate, Mexico. Very nice place. All the usual spa treatments (which do not interest me in the least) plus lots of classes (yoga, pilates, aerobics, etc.) plus lectures on a wide array of subjects (Mexican & Latin American history, several crackpot cure-all systems*, etc) and some really great hiking, which is what I was there for. The food is plants + dairy + fish; no meat or fowl. If you stick to the basic servings offered it's a modest weight-loss diet, but you can take more if you want. Lots and lots of salad & veggies. I almost never get enough of those when traveling, so I was very happy with the food.

(* There was a guy who does "craniosacral therapy: You lie on your back while he holds your head in his hands, and he "re-directs the blocked energy flows" in your body, using the "intention" of his mind. I cannot believe people are stupid enough to believe this crap. But then if the public believes the stuff their government tells them, I guess it's easy to believe a charlatan like this. And most of the treatments they offered were more conventional: massages and whatnot.)

The landscape is beautiful and impressive, but does not photograph well with my no-frills point-and-shoot digital camera. And the new PriusChat software will not accept bigger than 1024 X 768 pictures, and I'm not willing to screw around trying to make them fit. However, there's a photo tour on their website, here.

Oh, yes, there are cats there. Some won't let you get close, but some will let you pick them up and carry them around.

Great hiking, fabulous food, friendly cats = the best winter vacation spot I've yet found in North America. (Kenya is better, but too far away; Canada is better in summer, but that's only 2 months out of the year.)