8 Yucatan Hotels in the Henequen Haciendas

Around 1900 Mérida was said to have more millionaires per head than any city in the world, and the money came from rope.

Henequén is an agave whose leaves yield a stiff fibre, and from the 1860s the Yucatán supplied most of the world's binder twine — the cord that tied the wheat sheaves of the American Midwest as mechanical harvesting spread. The plantations were worked under a debt-peonage system that was effectively slavery, imposed largely on Maya labourers, and the fortunes it produced built the mansions along the Paseo de Montejo, a boulevard laid out in imitation of the Champs-Élysées.

Then synthetic twine arrived. Nylon and polypropylene destroyed the market through the 1940s and 50s, the haciendas were abandoned, and the great houses on the Paseo were shuttered for decades.

A good number of those haciendas are now hotels. The drying sheds, machine halls and chapels are still there, sometimes with the rusting decorticating machinery left in place, and the cenote that supplied the estate is usually still in the grounds.

A peninsula with no rivers

The Yucatán is a limestone shelf with essentially no surface water. Rain sinks straight through the rock and collects underground, and where the roof of a cavern collapses you get a cenote — a sinkhole of clear fresh water, of which there are thousands.

The Maya considered them entrances to the underworld and made offerings in them. They were also the only water supply, which is why settlements are where they are.

The Ring of Cenotes, a semicircular band of them across the northwest of the peninsula, traces the buried rim of the Chicxulub crater — the impact structure left by the asteroid that ended the Cretaceous around 66 million years ago. The fracturing from that impact is why the sinkholes line up.

The region

Mérida is a low colonial city with a Sunday when the centre closes to traffic and the whole town comes out.

The haciendas are scattered across the countryside within an hour or two.

Uxmal and the Puuc route, south, hold Maya sites in a different architectural style from Chichén Itzá and with a fraction of the visitors.

Chichén Itzá, east, needs an early start; it takes very large numbers.

Valladolid and Izamal are colonial towns, the latter painted entirely yellow.

The eight below are grouped that way.

Mérida

The city.

Rosas & Xocolate occupies a mansion on the Paseo de Montejo with a rooftop, a chocolate-led spa and a restaurant in the old house.

Casa Lecanda sits in a restored colonial house in the centre with a courtyard, a pool and a handful of rooms.

The Diplomat Boutique Hotel occupies a pair of nineteenth-century houses with a courtyard pool, a garden and a small room count.

The haciendas

Across the countryside.

Chablé Yucatán occupies a restored estate near Chocholá with villas around a cenote, a spa built into the old machine house and a kitchen doing serious Yucatecan cooking. It is the best hotel on the peninsula.

Hacienda Temozón, a Luxury Collection Hotel sits in a seventeenth-century henequén estate with the original chapel, a pool among the buildings and gardens around the old drying sheds.

Hacienda Xcanatún occupies a hacienda outside Mérida with a spa, a pool and rooms in the converted plantation buildings.

Hacienda Santa Rosa, a Luxury Collection Hotel sits in a restored estate with a cenote in the grounds and a small room count.

Valladolid

East, toward Chichén Itzá.

Coqui Coqui Valladolid occupies a colonial house in Valladolid with a courtyard, a pool and the cenotes and the ruins within reach.

What we have left off

The small guest houses across Mérida's centro are excluded, and the city has a great many in colonial houses at low prices. They are guest houses rather than hotels.

What to do

Swim in cenotes, and pick the less famous ones. Those around Homún and Cuzamá are reached down ladders into caverns and are far better than the ones on the tour circuit.

Go to Uxmal rather than only Chichén Itzá. The Puuc architecture is finer, the site is quieter, and the Governor's Palace is among the best Maya buildings standing.

Do Chichén Itzá at opening or not at all.

Walk the Paseo de Montejo and go into the Palacio Cantón, one of the henequén mansions, now the anthropology museum.

Eat cochinita pibil, sopa de lima and the papadzules, and note that Yucatecan food is its own cuisine — Maya, Spanish and Lebanese — rather than a version of Mexican.

Practical notes

Mérida's airport has domestic and some US connections; Cancún is four hours east by road.

November to March is the best window. April and May are very hot. The rains and hurricane season run June to November.

A car is useful for the haciendas and the Puuc route, and the roads are good.

What was henequén?

An agave fibre that supplied most of the world's binder twine from the 1860s, making Mérida enormously rich until synthetics destroyed the market.

What is a cenote?

A sinkhole of fresh water in limestone. The peninsula has no rivers and thousands of cenotes, and the Ring of Cenotes traces the buried Chicxulub crater rim.

Mérida or a hacienda?

The city for food, the Paseo and Sundays. A hacienda for a cenote in the grounds and total quiet. An hour apart.

How many nights?

Five. Two in the city and three at a hacienda with the ruins.

If you only book one