Hotel El Ganzo

There’s a poignant line from Stephen Sondheim’s musical Sunday in the Park with George.  It comes at the end of the show, where the protagonist, an artist, looks up towards the audience and says: ‘White. A blank page or canvas. His favourite. So many possibilities…’

Possibilities. They were all I could think of as I looked out over the glowing rooftop pool. Past the picturesque marina and beyond the Sea of Cortez into the East Cabo horizon. The sun was setting on 2 January, the sky painted in bright strokes of pink and orange, and I was looking ahead to a year of new beginnings.

And it wasn’t hard to feel hopeful. I was catching my first sunset at Hotel El Ganzo: a place built to inspire and foster creativity; a place where possibilities feel endless.  

So much of El Ganzo’s magic is in its mission to engage musicians and artists from around the world. Over the course of week-long residencies, these creators are encouraged to produce new works onsite – a painting, an installation, a new song – each time adding not only to the hotel’s vibrancy, but also enriching the Los Cabos arts community.

Everywhere you turn, you discover a new work, a new sound, a new idea left behind to captivate. A colorful mural of two fishing boats, painted on the hotel’s white-washed walls, mirroring the adjacent Puerto Los Cabos marina. A wooden pillar transformed into an oversized Crayola crayon, colouring your wait for the hotel’s panga boat to take you across the channel to the private beach club. A giant Star Wars stormtrooper looming over you at the rooftop pool and bar, protecting you as you doze off on your daybed. There’s even a hidden underground recording studio, accessed through wooden trap doors on the lobby floor, luring you down below to catch a sneak peek of a new musical duo at work.

To feast at El Ganzo is another pursuit for enlightenment. Eating fresh ceviche at the hotel’s private beach club becomes almost a meditative experience. As for the fish tacos at the hotel’s Container restaurant (a shipping container converted into a restaurant hidden within the Puertos marina), well let’s just say there’s a whole new level of appreciation when you can envision your lunch being caught mere moments before you take a bite. Come sunset, one sip of your gin-infused Cu Cu Ba cocktail while perched in the hotel’s floating glass hot tub, and you could swear you were transported to heaven.

But back down on earth, it was awesome to discover that El Ganzo has their own herb garden, only steps from the lobby restaurant. Farm-to-table is not merely a trend in East Cabo, but a movement. I ventured off property only twice and both times were to nearby farm stays – Flora Farms and Acre Baja. Part farm, part market and part restaurant, these immersive culinary experiences pull directly from their harvest, creating a meaningful connection to the local Baja flavors.

Blame it on the time change (or my New Yorker energy), but I couldn’t resist waking up every morning before dawn and watching the sunrise from my seaside balcony. It made it easy to attend morning yoga classes, too, held on the rooftop with El Ganzo’s resident instructors.  Looking over the mountains, your energy flows from head to heart, and when done, you’re left with only the deepest sense of balance and gratitude.

My last night at El Ganzo was spent sitting around the fire pit, listening to the hotel’s weekly Friday night music series, with a mezcal pina colada in hand. Two local singer-songwriters were performing some of their new works. When they asked the audience for any requests, I thought again about Stephen Sondheim, but instead screamed out ‘Hallelujah’.

As the song played on, I closed my eyes and thought again about possibilities realized amongst the creative minds at Hotel El Ganzo.

As Dot, George Seurat’s muse and lover, in Sunday in the Park with George sings: ‘Anything you do, let it come from you.  Then it will be new.  Give us more to see…’  

Hotel El Ganzo: please continue giving us more to see.