Pueblo Bonito Pacifica Holistic Resort & Spa

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During our recent Cabo San Lucas honeymoon, the Grim Cheaper and I stayed at the Pueblo Bonito Pacifica Holistic Resort & Spa.  And while I knew from looking at the property’s website that it was a beautiful place, at the time I made our reservation I had absolutely NO idea that it was also a celebrity destination AND a filming location!  They say that you attract those things to you that you think about the most, and in this case, that was most definitely true!   But more on that later.

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Before arriving in Cabo, I was a little apprehensive that it might be a somewhat dangerous place.  As it turns out, though, I don’t think I’ve ever felt more safe.  The city is beautiful, the people are some of the friendliest I’ve ever encountered, and the Cabo way of life is extremely laidback.  And while people generally refer to the entire area as being called Cabo San Lucas, it is actually known as Los Cabos and is made up of three different sections which span the southern tip of the Baja Peninsula.  The sections include San Jose Del Cabo, The Corridor, and Cabo San Lucas.  Long before I had planned our honeymoon, I had heard Jennifer Aniston and Jennifer Love Hewitt describe Cabo as a “sleepy, little fishing town”.  As it turns out, though, Jen and Love were not speaking about Cabo San Lucas proper, which is a major party city, but rather about San Jose Del Cabo, which is located about fifteen miles north.  Most celebrities choose to stay in one of the many five-star resorts located along The Corridor, the most popular of which are the Esperanza, the One&Only Palmilla, and Las Ventanas Al Paraiso.  Because The Corridor hotels are exorbitantly expensive, though, the Grim Cheaper and I chose instead to stay at a resort in Cabo San Lucas, but thankfully it was far removed from the whole party scene.

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The 154-room Pueblo Bonito Pacifica Holistic Resort & Spa first opened in 2005 and is located inside of a gated community about five miles north of town.  Thanks to the hotel’s strict adults-only policy and its remote location, it is an EXTREMELY quiet destination and has been billed as one of Cabo’s most romantic locales.  And let me tell you, the GC and I absolutely LOVED the place.  The resort is so quiet that we often looked around and asked ourselves if we were the only two people staying there.  It was without a doubt the most relaxing, quiet vacation I have ever been on.  In fact, outside of wanting to do a little stalking, neither of us found any reason whatsoever to leave the resort during our entire nine day stay.  It was the perfect place to spend our honeymoon and, because it is so reasonably priced, we are already making plans for a return visit.  🙂

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Upon first arriving at the resort, the Grim Cheaper and I were greeted with cool, wet towels infused with lavender oil with which to wash our hands.

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The lobby, which overlooks the ocean, was also infused with a lavender scent, which made the experience of entering the hotel seem like walking into a spa. Love it!

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The Pacifica features two pools, both of which overlook the ocean . . .

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. . . and one of which features a swim-up bar.

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The property is situated on a beautiful, private beach . . .

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. . . where outdoor beds can be rented during the day and for overnight stays.  The beds can also be rented for an ultra-romantic dinner under the stars, which we unfortunately didn’t find out about until the very last night we were there.  Ugh!  I so would have loved to have done that!  

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Our room was absolutely beautiful . . .

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. . . and featured a private balcony . . .

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. . . with a stunning view of the ocean and pool area.

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And at night the view only got more spectacular.  Sigh!  Oh, how I wish I was still there!

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The Pacifica features four different restaurants and bars, all of which serve up SEPCTACULAR food – especially the nachos, which were some of the best I’ve ever had in my entire life.  In fact, I’d book a stay at the hotel just for those nachos – that’s how good they were.  Best of all, the Pacifica also offers 24-hour room service, which the Grim Cheaper and I partook of virtually every single night.

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Because the resort is so remote and so private, numerous celebrities have checked in there over the years, including John Travolta and Kelly Preston, Lindsay Lohan, Cindy Crawford, Dolph Lundgren, and a bunch of sports stars, including a few Olympic gold medal winners, whose names I didn’t recognize.  And, let me tell you, I just about died when I found out that my girl Jen had once visited the hotel’s spa!  My Spanish isn’t all that great, so when I was speaking to the woman at the spa, I originally thought she said that Jen had stayed at the hotel on one occasion, but after talking with the concierge it turns out that Jen was only on the premises for a spa appointment.  It was still very exciting for me, nonetheless.

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Even more exciting, though, was when one of the Pacifica’s bartenders informed me that all three fantasy dates from Brad Womack’s season of The Bachelor had been filmed at the resort.  In the fantasy date episode, which aired on November 5, 2007, Brad flew his top three Bachelorettes – DeAnna Pappas, Jenni Croft, and Bettina Bell – down to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.  And not only were all three overnight stays filmed at the resort, but according to this press release, the entire cast and crew also stayed on the premises.  ABC.com even sponsored a Bachelor contest, where viewers at home could win their own 4-day, 3-night fantasy vacation at the Pacifica.  Sadly, Season 11 of The Bachelor does not seem to be available for purchase anywhere and because I didn’t watch the show that year, I am not sure which parts of the resort were featured in the fantasy date episode.   I was able to find the above clip of DeAnna Pappas’ date on YouTube, in which one of the resort’s timeshare villas, named the Montecristo Estates, is briefly shown.

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As you can see in the above pictures, which I got off of the Montecristo Estates Website, the entrance, bedroom, and private pool terrace are exact matches to the fantasy suite where DeAnna and Brad spent the night.

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Supposedly, the hotel’s main restaurant, Siempre, also appeared on The Bachelor. 

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I honestly can’t recommend stalking the Pueblo Bonito Pacifica Holistic Resort & Spa enough!  My honeymoon was truly one of the best vacations of my life!

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On a side note – For those who are planning a trip to the Cabo area, rest assured – the city does have a Starbucks.  🙂 

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And it looks pretty much like any other Starbucks one might find in America . . .

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. . . except that the menu is, of course, in Spanish.  So darn cool!

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When I asked the baristas to pose for the above photograph, they wrongly assumed that I had never before been to a Starbucks, which prompted them to ask, “Don’t you have a Starbucks where you come from?”  LOL LOL LOL  Oh, if they only knew!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: Pueblo Bonito Pacifica Holistic Resort & Spa is located at Cabo Pacifica S/N, 23450 Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.  You can visit the hotel’s official website here.  The resort is located inside of a gated community and I believe you have to have a dining reservation at one of the Pacifica’s restaurants or at one of the restaurants located inside of its sister hotel, Pueblo Bonito Sunset Beach Resort & Spa, to be admitted entrance.

The Rocks from Jennifer Aniston’s Perfume Ad

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This past April, the ad campaign for my girl Jen’s newly-released fragrance, which is named “Jennifer Aniston”, was revealed.  The ads showed the actress, wrapped solely in a towel, sitting on a very rocky beach somewhere in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.  Well, let me tell you, once I saw those photographs, I became extremely hell-bent on finding the exact spot where they had been taken, especially since around that very same time my fiancé and I had just not-so-coincidentally finalized our Cabo San Lucas honeymoon plans.  I say “not-so-coincidentally” because the only reason we even looked at honeymooning in Cabo in the first place was because of how often Jen vacations there.  My now-husband originally wanted to spend the honeymoon in Hawaii, but I am EXTREMELY afraid to fly and suffer from terrible anxiety days, and sometimes weeks, before venturing on a long flight.  I really didn’t want to be nervous or stressed about flying the day of my wedding, so I suggested we travel instead to a place a little closer to home.  I started looking at Cabo, mostly because it is Jen’s favorite getaway spot, and when I discovered that it was a short one-hour-and-fifty minute plane ride from LAX I was sold!  And then when the Grim Cheaper found out that we could book round-trip airfare to the Mexican city for a scant $150 each, it was pretty much “Cabo, here we come!”  So, a few weeks later when fellow stalker Owen sent me Jen’s new perfume ad, I just about fell over.  I mean, could it have been any more perfect?  Here I was about to head to the very city where the photographs had just been taken!  Yay!

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I half-jokingly asked Owen if he could track down the rocks for me prior to our trip, and even though I figured it would pretty much be like trying to find a needle in a haystack, about an hour later there was an email from him in my inbox along with a six-page attachment.  The email stated, “It’s pretty much impossible to find a couple of rocks without being there in Cabo, but I think I’ve got a good idea where you should look.”  Amazingly enough, even though Owen was not familiar with the area, he had figured out that the rock formation which can be seen in the distance behind Jen was the famous Land’s End (pictured above), which is located at the very southern tip of the Baja peninsula.  He also figured out that Jen’s head was blocking the three mountainous formations which can be seen at the far left of the above image.  Sure enough, when I looked at the above photograph compared with Jen’s advertisement, the two backgrounds matched perfectly.  From there, Owen scanned through aerial views of Cabo San Lucas to determine the exact location where Jen was sitting in the photograph.  His best guess was that the rocks were located somewhere on the far east end of Medano Beach, between Riu Palace and Missiones Del Cabo.  The six-page attachment he had included with his email provided detailed photographs, maps, and aerial views of the Cabo area, and, let me tell you, I printed that thing out and carried it with me EVERYWHERE I went in Mexico so that I could ask anyone and everyone who would talk to me where those rocks were located.

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One of the very first people I asked was our airport shuttle driver, whom we met immediately upon landing at Los Cabos International Airport.  The driver took one look at Jen’s picture and told us that it had been taken at the beach at Esperanza Resort, which I blogged about on Friday.  Turns out our shuttle driver used to be a paparazzi and not only recognized the beach from the many times he had gone there to photograph celebrities, but also informed us that Jen had stayed at the hotel countless times over the years, so it was a place she would have been familiar with.  He also pointed out that the structure visible in the background of the right-hand side of the picture (denoted with a blue arrow above) was the Sunset Da Mona Lisa Restaurant – a very popular Cabo San Lucas dining spot.  Even though the shuttle driver seemed to really know what he was talking about, I continued showing Jen’s picture to everyone I encountered on the trip to see if they might know for sure where it had been taken.  And it was mind-boggling how many different answers I received!  One bartender I spoke with even went so far as to hypothesize that the photograph had been taken at Chileno Beach and that the Land’s End rock formation had been digitally added to the background of the picture while it was being edited – which I guess is possible, but not very likely.  The answer we heard most often, though, was that the picture had been taken at the Esperanza Resort beach – which is pretty much the exact spot where Owen had originally told me to look.  So, one day the Grim Cheaper and I rented a car and headed north to try to find Jen’s rocks.

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And, let me tell you, it was quite the stalk!  Definitely different than any of the other stalks I’ve experienced in my lifetime.  Esperanza’s beach is extremely rocky, and when I say rocky, I mean ROCKY.  The GC and I had to traipse over three, four, and five-foot tall boulders while making our way north.  It was more of a mountain climb than anything else, actually.  Oh, and did I mention that it was about 110 degrees at the time?  I can only imagine what the people who saw us during our hike were thinking.  Probably something along the lines of “Stupid-*ss gringos!”  😉  The GC and I walked about a kilometer north of the resort, which took us around ninety minutes, and examined every square inch of the beach.  Finding Jen’s exact rocks proved to be rather difficult, though, as we had arrived at the Esperanza in the late afternoon during high-tide and I am almost certain that Jen was photographed in the early morning hours when the tide was much, much lower.  Adding to the difficulty was the fact that Jen’s photograph had been taken with a wide-angle lens, which distorted the background of the image.

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What we finally determined, without being able to find the actual rocks, was that Jen was photographed about five hundred feet north of Esperanza Resort. As you can see in the above photograph as compared with Jen’s advertisement, while it’s not the exact spot where Jen sat, I think we got pretty darn close.  I am fairly certain that Jen’s photo was taken on the same rock formation where I am sitting in the above picture, but a bit farther out towards the sea.  Because the tide was high while we were there, though, we unfortunately couldn’t venture out any farther into the water.

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As you can see above, numerous photographs were taken for the Jennifer Aniston Perfume advertising campaign.  My favorite, though, was definitely the one featuring Land’s End in the background.  But truth be told, she looks amazing in all of them!  Can you even imagine being 41 years old and having a body like that?  Who am I kidding – can you even imagine being 21 years old and having a body like that???  Sigh!   The photographs were all shot by renowned Italian photographer Mario Sorrenti and I honestly think that they are some of the best photos that Jen has ever taken.

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The perfume, which was originally called Lolavie (which some have reported as being a rough French translation for “laughing at life”), took 18 months to create and the actress made herself a part of every minute detail of the development process.  Of the creation, Jen said, “It wasn’t just about showing up for a shoot and putting my name on the bottle.  I felt like a little chemist.  It’s turned out to be an extension of myself as opposed to slapping my name on something.”  The perfume is supposed to smell clean and beachy, but unfortunately, because, it is only available at Harrods Department Store in London (and for whatever reason it cannot be shipped outside of the UK), I have yet to be able to catch a sniff of it.  🙁  But thankfully, my good friend and fellow stalker Kerry has a daughter, Jen, who has a friend who lives in London who is going to purchase a bottle for me and bring it with her to the states when she comes to visit next month.  And, let me tell you, I cannot wait to get my hands on it!  Of the scent, Jen said, “I am not a big perfume-y fragrance fan.  I want people to go ‘What is that?  You smell great!’”  I have never been a perfume-fragrance fan, either, but if I did wear a scent, that is EXACTLY what I would want people to say about it, so I have a feeling I am going to LOVE Jen’s perfume.  🙂

Jen was recently on fave show Chelsea Lately where she spoke about her perfume, of which Chelsea said, “Oh, that smells EXACTLY like I think you would smell!”  LOVE IT!  LOVE IT!  LOVE IT!  And being that I would like nothing more than to smell like Jen, I am pretty sure Jennifer Aniston is going to become my signature scent.  😉  You can watch a clip of Jen’s Chelsea Lately appearance by clicking above.

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Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding this location!  🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Esperanza Map 2

Stalk It: I am fairly certain that the rocks from Jennifer Aniston’s perfume advertisements are located about 500 feet north of the Esperanza Resort, which is located at Carretera Transpeninsular KM 7 in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.  I would recommend parking your car at the Esperanza and using their beach access.  From there, walk due north to the rock formation denoted with the pink arrow above.  Be forewarned, though, the beach north of the Esperanza is extremely rocky and makes for quite a precarious walk.  Be extremely cautious and wear shoes with good tread.  I’d also recommend stalking the beach early in the morning, during low tide.

Esperanza Resort

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Another celebrity hot spot that my husband and I stalked while honeymooning in Cabo San Lucas last week was the world-famous Esperanza Resort hotel – a place my girl Jen A. has checked into frequently over the years.   The 17-acre property, which is a member of the Leading Hotels of the World, is consistently referred to as Cabo’s most luxurious and exclusive resort.  The hotel is made up of only 57 rooms – fifty individual casitas and seven over-sized suites – so it truly offers its guests, many of whom are movie stars, the ultimate in privacy – and service.  Just a few of the amenities offered at the resort include a private beach, an award-winning spa with steam caves and waterfalls, an infinity pool overlooking the ocean, a yoga and Pilates studio where the classes are free, an art gallery, loaner iPods, and coconut-milk popsicles which are doled out regularly to those guests lying poolside.  Needless to say, the hotel, which is part of the exclusive Auberge Resort chain, has won countless awards over the years, including three of Travel + Leisure Magazine’s 2010 “World’s Best Awards” – #1 Resort, #1 Spa, and #1 Service for their Best in Mexico section.  It truly is a remarkable and absolutely beautiful place!

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I absolutely fell in love with Esperanza’s The Signature Restaurant, which is pictured above.  The restaurant is composed of three different levels of terraces, all of which overlook both the Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Cortez, and is breathtakingly beautiful.  I SO wanted to grab dinner there during our stay in Cabo, but the Grim Cheaper was having none of that.  🙁

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Esperanza’s extensive celebrity guest list reads like a Who’s Who of Hollywood.  Just a few of the stars who have been spotted there include Fergie and Josh Duhamel (the Esperanza was where the famous 2008 picture of Josh D. painting on the beach was taken), Chelsea Handler, Debra Messing, Courteney Cox and David Arquette, Sheryl Crow, Ashley Simpson and Pete Wentz, Jennie Garth, Usher, Owen Wilson, and Will and Jada Pinkett Smith.  In 2003, Elizabeth Berkley married Ralph Lauren’s nephew, Greg, at the Esperanza.  That same year Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin honeymooned there, as did Katherine Heigl and Josh Kelley in 2007.  And according to this Forbes.com article, the Esperanza gifted a free weekend stay to all of the 2002 Academy Award winners. 

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And as proof that visiting the hotel almost guarantees one a celeb sighting, while we were there my husband and I spotted LeAnn Rimes and Eddie Cibrian, who were in town to celebrate LeAnn’s 28th birthday.  To clarify, I should say that I actually spotted the two stars – the Grim Cheaper was absolutely clueless.  He had gone to the restroom immediately upon our arrival at the hotel, while I grabbed a seat in the resort’s outdoor lounge.  Shortly after I sat down, who should walk into the bar area but LeAnn Rimes followed by Eddie C.  I recognized the two of them immediately and just about had a heart attack I was so excited!  When the GC returned from the restroom, he told me that he wanted to head down to the beach right away to search for the rocks where Jennifer Aniston recently posed for the ad for her newly released perfume (the rocks were our sole reason for visiting the Esperanza and I will be blogging about them on Monday) and grab a drink afterwards.  I started making faces at him to alert him to the fact that we were in the presence of celebrities, but he remained clueless.  I finally grabbed some paper out of my purse and wrote the above-pictured note.  GC took one look at the note, glanced over towards LeAnn, and then said, “Oh OK.  Well, come on, let’s go down to the beach.”  LOL  Needless to say he was not at all impressed.  We stayed at the bar for a few more minutes while I debated about going up to LeAnn and Eddie to ask for a photograph, but I ultimately decided against it.  They were on vacation at an ultra-exclusive and ultra-private resort and I felt that it would be inappropriate to bother them.  And I was happy enough just to have seen them in person, anyway.  🙂  When we returned from the beach about an hour and a half later, we again spotted LeAnn and Eddie swimming and eating nachos at the resort’s pool.  And I have to say that while I’ve never thought LeAnn was especially attractive in photographs, she is absolutely GORGEOUS in person.  I’d even go so far as to say that she was luminous.  Needless to say, seeing her was one of the highlights of my honeymoon.  🙂

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And, of course, the Esperanza is also a filming location!  The hotel stood in for the Cabo San Lucas resort where Eddie (aka Ben Stiller) and Lila (aka Malin Ackerman) honeymooned in the 2007 movie The Heartbreak Kid.

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On a side note, one of my former acting teachers, Roy Jenkins (pictured above), played the role of Buzz in The Heartbreak Kid.  So darn cool!

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Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: Esperanza: An Auberge Resort is located at Carretera Transpeninsular KM 7 in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.  You can visit the hotel’s official website here.