La Raza De
Los Muertos

Mexico City, then the Caribbean.

This is two trips in one week. Part one is Mexico City, the one week a year it throws the Grand Prix and the Day of the Dead together and the whole place goes up: race day from a lounge with the track in front of you, a parade with skulls the size of buildings, a private guide through the exotic food market, and nights that end on their own terms. Part two is Tulum, a short flight south to the Caribbean coast: jungle cenotes with a private guide, quad bikes through the trees, a rope descent into a cave, jumps straight off the rocks, a beach club as the sun drops, and a private villa with a pool of its own.

Skull and suitThe whole city dressed for the dead. Time to get your James Bond on.

Race dayTrackside, from a private lounge

World-famous nightlifeRooftops, mezcal, late finishes

Cenotes & cliff jumpsGuided, no course, no tanks

Into the caveRoped down through the roof

The foodA private guide, market to table

Eight nights, day by day.

Eight nights, nine days, two destinations. Five days in Mexico City for the race, the market, the parade and the Day of the Dead, then all eight of you fly south to Tulum for four days of quad bikes, cave descents, cenotes and the coast. Nothing here is a filler day.

Part OneMexico City29 Oct to 2 Nov · Days 1 to 5

Thu 29 Oct · Day 1

Arrival

Land, drop your bags in Roma Norte, and open the week the way it should be opened: the eight of you around one table, mezcal poured, the city humming outside. An easy first night on purpose, because nothing after this one is.

Arrival

Fri 30 Oct · Day 2

The exotic food market

A private guide takes the eight of you through the city's exotic food market, the one locals send you to and tourists walk past. Grasshoppers, ant eggs, things you will photograph before you eat and eat anyway, alongside the best produce in the country and stalls that have been in the same family for generations. You taste your way through it and keep going into the afternoon, tacos standing on the street, mezcal as the light drops. The night finishes on a rooftop with the whole city lit up beneath you, and the sense that the big one is coming.

Private guide · Market · Rooftop

Sat 31 Oct · Day 3

The parade

The biggest day on the city calendar. Hundreds of thousands line the main avenue, skulls the height of buildings float past, drums you feel in your chest, and everyone, including you, is painted for it. It runs from the park to the main square and then straight into Halloween night, which here is not a costume party, it is the whole city out at once. This one goes late.

The parade · Halloween

Sun 1 Nov · Day 4

Race day

The main event. You take in the Grand Prix from a private hospitality lounge trackside, out of the crowds, food and drinks all day, the cars screaming past a few metres away and the giant screens on for everything you cannot see. Mexico is the loudest crowd on the calendar and you feel it from the moment the lights go out to the moment the podium goes up. Back into the city that evening as the candles and the altars start to appear.

Race day · Trackside lounge

Mon 2 Nov · Day 5

Día de Muertos

The city belongs to the dead today. Marigolds by the armful, candlelight in every doorway, altars built for people who are still spoken about daily, and families out in their hundreds of thousands. A slower day, wandered at your own pace, and the one most people end up remembering. Then it is time to leave the capital behind.

Día de Muertos

Part TwoTulum3 to 6 Nov · Days 6 to 9

Tue 3 Nov · Day 6

Down to the coast

A short flight south and everything changes. Off the plane and straight to the villa: gates open, glass walls onto the trees, a pool cut into the jungle, and rooms claimed in about four minutes. Nothing is booked for the rest of the day, so it goes however you want it, in the water, out for dinner, or neither. The coast starts properly tomorrow.

Tulum · The villa

Wed 4 Nov · Day 7

Into the jungle

The loud one. Quad bikes first, the whole group out on the tracks through the jungle, dust and noise and nothing else on the road, throttle open wherever it is straight enough. Then harnesses on and over the lip of a cave cenote, roping down through a hole in the roof into the dark, the daylight shrinking above you the further you go. At the bottom, cold clear water and the best swim of the week waiting in the middle of a cave nobody at home will believe you were in.

Quad bikes · Rappel

Wed 4 Nov · Night

After dark

Back out once the sun goes, because a cenote at night is a different thing entirely. Lights under the surface, black water that glows from below, and the whole group in it with a guide, floating over a cave system that goes further down than anyone can see. Six in the evening until eleven, and it is the one people go quiet in.

Night snorkel

Thu 5 Nov · Day 8

The cenote run

One private guide, one road out of town, three cenotes strung along it. First the one you have seen in photographs, a skull of rock with holes open in the roof and a drop into deep water that you jump if you want to. Then two more on the same road, open and bright, for swimming, going down as far as your breath takes you, and jumping off anything high enough. No course, no certificate, no tanks, just the group and the guide in the water all day.

Private guide · Cenotes

Thu 5 Nov · Night

The beach club

The last big night, and the coast does it properly. Day beds on the sand while the light goes, the sea a few steps away, a table when you want one and music that climbs as the evening does. Easy or enormous, entirely up to the eight of you, and either way it is the right way to close the week.

Beach club · Last night

Fri 6 Nov · Day 9

Departure

One last slow morning on the coast, a final swim in water that colour, breakfast with the sea in front of you, and then home or wherever is next. Eight nights, two halves, and a week that takes a while to come down from.

Departure

A residence, then a villa.

The first half in a set of design residences in the heart of Roma Norte: exposed brick, pale wood and concrete, open-plan living space big enough for all eight of you, a kitchen you will barely use, and terraces looking out over the rooftops. Step out of the door and the best food and nights in the city are around you. Then the last three nights in a private villa in Tulum, yours alone: glass walls onto the jungle, a pool cut into the middle of it, an open kitchen and living space for all eight, and a concierge on hand for whatever you decide you want.

The residenceRoma Norte, Mexico City

Your roomWindows into the treetops

Then, the villaYour own pool in the jungle

The whole place is yoursAll eight of you, one villa

The details.

Mexico City and Tulum, one week.

Five days in Mexico City for race day trackside, the exotic food market, the parade at full volume and the Day of the Dead. Then four on the Caribbean coast in Tulum for the cenotes, the ruins, the beach and a villa of your own. Eight founders, eight nights, two destinations, one week that does not repeat. This is the one to say yes to.