The Soul of Travel Magazine
TRAVEL JOURNALISM WITH SOUL *** Spring & Summer 2008
Ranch Encantado-Music
by Lisbeth Hadden-Fritzberg
You know you are in a happy place when the employees sing while they work. This is true at Rancho Encantado, a small, exquisite Mexican eco-resort just north of Belize in the southeastern part of the Yucatán peninsula. As a patron at this literally enchanted place on the shores of the “Lake of the Seven Colors,” you will not have a TV in your thatch-roofed casita, nor will there be a radio or telephone; but if you listen carefully, there is music in the air. Mid-morning, Anuncio, one of the groundskeepers, sings ballad after ballad as he rakes the wind-fallen debris off the hard-scrabble dirt of this land that was carved out of the jungle. Chari, one of the housekeepers, also hums and sings as she makes beds, mops the red tile floors, and cleans the bathrooms of one of the 12 casitas on the resort grounds. Not ordinary, this music — it is for the ears of the heart.