From top: A directional road sign on a path at Rancho La Puerta in Tecate, Mexico; Szekely and her daughter, Sarah Livia Brightwood.
Unlike some spartan getaways, Rancho La Puerta actually celebrates food—just the healthy, naturally grown, and unprocessed variety. There’s even a six-acre organic garden where guests can pick ingredients and then learn how best to prepare them at Rancho’s cooking school, established in 2007. Otherwise, the food plan is a moderated-portion, meat-free one, so visiting couch-potato snackers will likely drop a few pounds—without feeling starved. “We teach a way of life here,” Szekely says. “Every morning, you need to wake up and think, What am I going to do today that allows me to eat? You have to earn it.”
She’ll certainly earn a feast on her upcoming birthday, which she intends to celebrate the same way she did her 80th—by climbing the 3,885-foot-high Mount Kuchumaa, the tallest peak in Rancho’s breathtaking backyard range. “It’ll take a little longer this time,” she says, laughing. “But I’m doing it.”
