Hacienda La Cienega

This has to be one of my favourite places we’ve ever stayed. We don’t go out of our way to pick places that are remarkable – we usually choose the reasonably price car, the reasonably priced hotel, the reasonably priced restaurant. This was reasonably priced too and though it wasn’t mint, with every want fulfilled, it was an extraordinary place that I really enjoyed.

The walls are 3ft thick and the hotel has beautiful stone floors and beautiful hardwood. We are here, apparently in the coldest month, and all the fireplaces are going non stop. This is actually not hard to do here; they burn Eucalyptus which is an incredibly dense hardwood. It burns and smolders for hours on end even unattended. There were times we went into rooms and they didn’t appear to have a fire going but the embers under the huge logs were there and generating a silent heat that permeated the room. That wood just burns like nothing I’ve ever seen.

Every day when we returned from our hikes and wanderings our fire in our room would be lit and warming the room. There is nothing nicer than to come home to a warm fire. The hotel had multiple large living rooms where guests could relax by the fire and enjoy the ambiance. The hotel was decorated for Christmas which got us into the Christmas mood.

We made some new friends here too as we have all along the way this trip. They’re doing a huge tour and it was nice to be invited to have dinner with them- it was such a good time. All of them were from Australia and it made for good dinner conversation to just chat about things that are slightly different or the same and also talk about what they had seen along the way. Hi Lynn, John, Keith………