Los Cabos, Mexico · September 1 – 5, 2026

Los Cabos: The Week the Weather Lost

A travelogue, written up from Matt’s desk — by Claudia

Some trips survive on their itinerary. This one had its itinerary taken away on the first evening and turned out to be one of the better weeks anyway — which tells you rather a lot about where they were staying. Four nights at the Waldorf Astoria Los Cabos Pedregal over Labor Day, Matt and Amber, at the end of a summer that had earned it.

The Tunnel, and What Was Waiting on the Other Side

You arrive at Pedregal through a tunnel bored straight through the headland — a genuinely theatrical piece of arrival, dark and cool for a few seconds before the Pacific opens up on the other side. The property climbs the cliff from there in terraces, so that every room looks at water and nothing looks at another room.

They were shown up, shown around, and left alone on their terrace. At half past four, unasked, a tray arrived at the plunge pool: chips, guacamole, two cold Coronas. Nobody had ordered it. Nobody made a performance of delivering it. It simply turned up because someone had decided that was what four-thirty on an arrival day required.

Matt noticed. He would notice a great deal more over the next four days, but that was the first one.

A cigar and a cold Coronita on the terrace — Four-thirty on arrival day, unasked for. This is the whole trip in one photograph.

Guacamole and drinks on the terrace at dusk — The terrace did a lot of work over four days.

Then Marie Arrived

Hurricane Marie closed every port in Los Cabos from six o’clock that first evening.

There had been a plan — a good one, built over weeks. A sunset cruise. A marlin charter. A day off property for Flora Farms, tacos at Gardenias, the gallery district in San José. All of it, in the space of one afternoon, became theoretical. The cruise went first. The charter was cancelled twice, which takes a particular kind of optimism to achieve.

It is worth being honest about this: September in Baja is hurricane season and they knew it. It was a bet, and the bet lost. What’s interesting isn’t that the weather won — it’s what happened next.

Heavy surf breaking onto the beach under a bright sky — The swell that closed every port in Los Cabos, doing it in broad daylight and beautiful weather.

A wave barrelling over rocks — No boats went out. Nothing about the water looked like it was negotiating.

The Property Simply Took Over

With the water off the table, Pedregal did the work.

The staff there operate at a level that’s difficult to describe without sounding like a brochure, so here are specifics instead. A bottle of numbered Casa Dragones appeared, with compliments. At dusk the paths up the cliff were lit by hand with candles, every evening, whether or not anyone was walking them. One afternoon a falconer walked past the terrace with a hawk on his arm — resident staff, part of the property’s own quiet ecology, entirely unremarked upon.

And there was Francisco. Matt had opened a line to the concierge desk by email ten days before arrival, which is the sort of small unglamorous move that pays for itself, and then used the relationship hard once he was on the ground. Francisco’s finest hour came on the Saturday: a cliff-edge table at Sunset Monalisa, same day, in high season, with a car arranged both directions. That is not a reservation. That is a favour, extended by someone who had decided to be on your side.

A path up the cliff lit by candles at dusk — Lit by hand every evening, whether or not anyone was walking up.

A numbered bottle of Casa Dragones tequila in the room — A numbered bottle of Casa Dragones, with compliments. Nobody mentioned it.

The infinity pool looking out toward Land's End — Every room looks at water and nothing looks at another room.

If you go: write to the concierge before you arrive, by name, and tell them what the trip is for. It changes the week.

The Best Hour of the Trip Belonged to Amber

The spa at Pedregal is called Luna y Mar, and Amber went in for something called the Moon Nourishing treatment — a mud bath, a sugar scrub, a mask, a head massage, a partial facial, stitched together over a long unhurried afternoon.

She came out and said, without hedging and without being asked, that it was the best spa experience of her life.

That’s the sort of verdict that usually softens on the drive home. This one didn’t. It was still the answer days later, and it remains the single clearest thing either of them says about the week.

The Best Meal Was Somewhere Else

Here is the part the property doesn’t get credit for.

They ate well on site — El Farallon, built into the rock above the surf, and Don Manuel’s, which they returned to more than once out of a combination of loyalty and weather. Both were perfectly good. Neither was the meal.

The meal was Sunset Monalisa, off property, on the Ocean Terrace, at the table Francisco had conjured. Cliff, water, the light going, and food that actually justified the setting. It beat everything on property on the same money, and it wasn’t close.

The cliff below El Farallon seen from the beach — El Farallon, built into the rock above the surf. The setting never disappointed.

They came early and sat out on the rocks first, because the light was doing something and there was no reason to be indoors for it. Land’s End sat out in the water behind them the whole time, sailboats crossing in front of it, and nobody was in a hurry about anything.

Amber on the rocks at golden hour with Land's End behind her — Amber, on the rocks, an hour before dinner. The light did most of the work.

Matt on the rocks with a glass of champagne, Land's End behind — No hurry to be seated.

Then the table. Oysters over coals on a little grill brought to the table, bone marrow under tartare, warm bread, and a bottle of Roederer poured with the Pacific going gold behind the waiter’s shoulder. This is the part where the trip stopped apologising for the weather.

A waiter pouring Roederer champagne beside grilled oysters and bone marrow, ocean behind — Grilled oysters, bone marrow, and a bottle of Roederer, with the Pacific doing the lighting.

The honest summary of the eating: the food disappointed relative to the surroundings, right up until the night they left.

El Arco at Land's End under an orange sunset sky — El Arco, from the terrace, as the sky gave up its last good hour.

If you go: book the property hard, book one dinner outside it, and leave the rest open.

So, How Was It?

Three separate times over four days, unprompted and in almost the same words, Matt said the same thing:

“Service is palpable at this property — it’s the most amazing thing.”

Not the room, though the room was extraordinary. Not the food, which wasn’t. Not the itinerary, which a hurricane deleted before dinner on the first night. The people.

Two boats cancelled. A whole off-property day never used. A week of weather that arrived precisely when the forecast said it would, and did precisely what it was always going to do. And the trip worked — because from the guacamole at the plunge pool to the candles on the path to Francisco making a Saturday table appear out of nothing, nobody at Pedregal ever stopped being extraordinary.

You can’t book that. You can only pick a place that has it.

Land's End rock formation in heavy surf at sunset — Land's End at the end of a week that didn't go to plan and worked anyway.

— Claudia, for Matt