This is the fourth in a series of posts about Tony's Mayan drive trip.

My Mayan tour continues as I head towards Merida on my way to Hacienda Santa Rosa. Twenty minutes after passing through the village of Tixkokob I reach the Periferico, or loop road, that circles Merida and follow the signs south towards Campeche. I connect with the four lane highway south, traveling roughly forty minutes before turning off at Maxcanu and despite my somewhat limited  Spanish language, manage to follow the signs for Granada and Hacienda Santa Rosa.

Traveling on a small two lane local road punctuated by mountainous speed bumps, I slow down so I don’t rip the oil pan off the bottom of my rented Jeep when several roadside produce sellers, mostly women, approach me with their wares - gallon size clear plastic bags filled with sliced fresh fruit: oranges, grapefruits, lemons and limes for ten pesos per bag or about one dollar US. Hard to pass up such a bargain and the two senoras I patronized were visibly grateful to have made the sale. Now, if I couldn’t find the hacienda at least I had enough fruit to last me about four days.

I continue along this road following my detailed directions to “turn right approximately 1 km after passing the gas station” onto an even smaller two lane road for 7 km. I pass several driveways and dirt lanes that disappear into the vegetation that overhangs the road but see no buildings and there were no other cars on the road. At the Hacienda Santa Rosa sign, I turn onto a one lane road leading to the hacienda entrance, passing through the small village surrounding it. The palm tree lined driveway bisects a verdant expanse of lawn ending at a set of stone steps that run the length of the building and leading up to the long open veranda. The drive is paved with blocks of stone from nearby Mayan ruins and were also used to fashion the stairs, the Spaniards’ way of establishing Catholicism by tearing down the Mayan religion in a physical fashion and using the salvaged material where it would actually be walked on.

Hacienda Santa Rosa was started in 1855 as a cattle ranch, transforming into a henequen (sisal) plantation with the completion of the machinery building in 1916 and included the surrounding 94-house village for workers whose population totaled about 350. Abandoned when the henequen industry faded out in the mid-twentieth century, a two-year restoration was begun on the main buildings of the hacienda in 1995 that involved the groundbreaking practice of hiring and training the local population first in the construction work and later on for hotel positions.

Despite being only a 40-minute ride from Merida’s International Airport, H. Santa Rosa is pretty much out in the middle of nowhere and the indigenous population suffered from high unemployment and the resulting poverty between the time the plantation shut down operations and the restoration began on the hacienda, a period of about 40 years. The H. Santa Rosa now offers local employment opportunities at the hotel as do all the haciendas in this Starwood Luxury Collection group.

After I checked in, the bellhop gave me a brief overview of the hotel grounds while showing me to my room. The ten guest rooms located in the former machinery house are graced with an elegant charm characterized by 23-foot beamed ceilings, marble bathrooms and simple furnishings of wood and rattan. The walls are hand-stenciled with patterns from the original main house and each room has a hammock to allow guests to sleep in the pure Mayan style. Most have a private garden graced by a soaking pool or chultune, a Mayan stone well originally built to capture and store fresh rainwater. Casa Maya is a privately located small cottage built with rounded corners and a traditional thatched palm roof. The grounds also have several swimming pools, a botanical garden and the original irrigation system which is an engineering marvel.

I was joined for dinner that evening by the the resident manager of the Hacienda Santa Rosa, Venezuelan-born Ceasar Vergara. The dinner menu featured intriguing (read unfamiliar) dining choices of Yucatan regional specialties with names like pechuga de pollo de rellena de cochinita pibil (chicken breast stuffed with pork marinated in annatto),  longaniza de valladolid (grilled Mexican pork sausage marinated with bitter orange and served with the local condiment of pickled red onion) or pescado Santa Rosa (grouper filet with local pumpkin with a tamarind/lemon grass sauce). I settled on an order of panuchos , a personal favorite, and the cochinita pibil enterrada, annatto and bitter orange marinated pork baked underground wrapped in banana leaves and served with pickled red onions. As we sat on the sprawling veranda, ceiling fans turning slowly overhead, forged iron lamps casting a soft glow, Ceasar gave me some fresh insight into life at the hacienda. Just as the hacienda supported the local village surrounding it when it was a henequen plantation, so it does today but with a slightly different focus. Whereas the indigenous Mayans were exploited, forced to work long hours for little pay then forced to spend most of it at the “company store” for essentials, today the hacienda provides opportunities for employment in all areas of the hotel operations and focuses on improving the quality of life for the families of the community. In addition, the non-profit Fundacion Haciendas del Mundo Maya (Haciendas of the Maya World Foundation) was created by the owners of these haciendas to support local artisans by establishing workshops to produce products of henequen, metal filigree, embroidery and carved horn to name a few. Gift shops at the haciendas sell their handiwork at a fair price, thereby increasing income, especially for the women in this traditional male-dominated society.

Ceasar went on to explain that the resident managers at each of the haciendas are encouraged to share whatever additional talents they may possess outside of the hotel business to improve the surrounding village. Ceasar had also been schooled as a musician, a talented vocalist, and now had a choir made up of 24 of the local children ages 8-16. He was excited and a little bit nervous about their first performance coming up in a few weeks. It was being held Christmas Eve in the village square which would assure the entire village would turn out to listen. I could see that working at this hacienda was much more than a job for him as he was now an active member of the community.

As Ceasar and I lingered over coffee, talking about music and the Mayan ruins we had visited, the  Mona Lisa moon rose over the palm trees, throwing its reflection across the pool and bathing everything in a thin white light. It had been an exciting day of discovery and enrichment and I looked forward to seeing the ruins at Uxmal tomorrow as well as the Hacienda Temozon. I bade goodnight to Ceasar and headed down the path to my room.