When you daydream about the incredible vacation lodgings in Mexico, you probably aren’t imagining yourself sleeping inside the belly of an enormous serpent. But maybe you should be. Some of the nation?s coolest and most unique guest rooms can be found within El Nido de Quetzalcoatl (Quetzalcoatl?s Nest), an inhabitable sculpture located just north of Mexico City that was built to exist in low-impact harmony with a system of nearby natural caves.

?One day, I thought that the mouth of the cave resembled a snake?s head with open jaws,? says Javier Senosiain, a Mexican architect famous for his unexpected organic creations. Tasked with developing an irregular 5,000-square-meter plot of land with challenging topography, Senosiain investigated the site and found himself envisioning something simultaneously monstrous and delightful. ?We located it in the scale model and noticed that it seemed like a virtual snake going in and out of the land? we decided then to place a tail and call it Quetzalcoatl,” he explains. His team was careful to preserve the beauty of the landscape as much as possible, leaving most of the existing vegetation intact during the construction process.

“At the top in the rattlesnake, we placed the water tank, below, the area for the janitor, and far below, a machine room with ten small warehouses, one for each apartment. It is worth mentioning that the land remained almost [fully] intact because it was only touched where the body of Quetz...