Rancho Encantado's twelve thatch- or tile-roofed cottages—upscale versions of local huts—are partitioned into sleeping and sitting areas, with traditional carved wood and cane furniture on red-tiled floors, modern bathrooms, refrigerators, huge jugs of purified water, and woven hammocks on every porch. Several cottages feature brightly colored murals depicting ancient Mayan life.
Rancho guests gather in the open-air dining pavilion for the 6 p.m. cocktail hour followed by a family-style supper, where everyone shares "what did you do today?" stories. The evening we arrive, several people are joking with Arturo, the convivial bartender, and raving about exotic carvings they had seen at Hormiguero, a site hidden in the jungle about three hours west of Bacalar. "Try one of Arturo's margaritas," suggests Catherine, who is visiting from Santa Fe with her husband and seven-year-old daughter. "But make sure you can find your way back to your cottage," she laughs, "They're lethal!"
Rancho guests typically turn in well before 10 p.m., waking at dawn to listen to the birds, watch the sun rise over the lake, or sip good strong coffee on the dock under the palapa, a palm-roofed shelter that is ubiquitous throughout the Yucatan. Like Catherine and her husband, self-described "Maya freaks," the dozen other guests during our February stay are a mix of amateur anthropologists, nature buffs, and "soft adventure" travelers (like us) looking for an exotic yet comfortable vacation spot.
We begin our Mayan explorations at the unexpectedly high-tech Museum of Mayan Culture in nearby Chetumal, the languid tropical capital of Quintana Roo state. Opened in 1995, the museum's hands-on exhibits—including touch-screen computers, multi-panel slide presentations, and other electronic displays—introduce visitors to the sophisticated Mayan calendar, numbering system, and language. Our four-year-olds love matching the Mayan bar-and-bead numbers with our own, particularly when flashing lights signal a correct answer.
Another exhibit explains that to achieve sloping foreheads and elongated skulls—Mayan ideals of beauty—the Mayas bound their newborn children's heads in a wooden-board sandwich. They also hung a small ball in the center of their babies' foreheads, like a mobile, to create "beautiful" crossed eyes.
We leave the museum, blinking as we cross the sun-baked plaza to Chetumal's bustling market, where we stop for chicken mole, fried fish, and quesadillas at a market lunch counter. The solicitous matriarch who rules the luncheonette fusses when my mother, not hungry, wants only dry toast. No butter? No jam? Not even a cup of coffee? Seqora keeps returning with more suggestions—Maybe some tea? Perhaps a sweet roll?—despite our assurances that everything is muy sabroso, very tasty.
Where are you going?
What do you want to do?
