As the hotel business in Baja California Sur evolves and matures, some offerings are embracing a bygone, low-fi ethos. El Perdido is not only a case in point but a precedent for hyper-local hospitality.

Set back from the Pacific in the desert town of El Pescadero, the clay, stone and local wood complex blends with the surroundings like the indigenous buildings that serve as its architectural inspiration. The layout of the proprety embraces slow living. Stone paths wind through native vegetation to an Observatory built by the rules of sacred geometry, and a chapel with an earthen floor and stone walls. An organic garden on the site is planted around a Tree of Life sculpture, offering herbs and vegetables that supply the hotel.

Guest rooms are in private huts, or Jacales, topped with palm thatch. Each takes a back-to-the-land approach to luxury, with wood-lined king bedrooms, en-suites and living and dining areas with reeded panelling and rustic furnishings. Baths and showers are in private, screened areas outdoors, and a small, fully equipped kitchen off the living room enables guests to prepare meals with produce from the organic garden and recipes from the on-site market. A spacious terrace with a hammock leads onto a native flora garden on each plot.

With the coastal chaparral and the peaks of the Sierra Nevada on the horizon, guests can enjoy the surroundings without leaving the property, or head out into the landscape — to the black-sand beach of Las Palmas or the El Aguaje desert oasis. Guides are recruited from the local communities and the hotel sources most of what it uses from the peninsula, feeding part of its income back into the land.

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