The first night I stayed at the Hacienda Yaxcopoil, a Mayan grandmother showed up at my door, carrying several buckets and bowls that contained my dinner. With the grandmother, who was named Aurora, were her daughter, Carmina, and her granddaughter, 2-year-old Paulina.

The hacienda, located about 20 miles from Mérida in Mexico's Yucatán region, is an interesting place to spend the night. Or in my case, three nights.

A henequen plantation in the 19th and 20th centuries, the hacienda is now a museum. It also has a one-room guesthouse that rents for $60 a night. Breakfast and dinner cost an extra $20 daily, and its Web site promised Mayan meals. That's what interested me.

Hacienda Yaxcopoil — its name means "the place of the green alamo trees" in Mayan — was once one of the most important rural estates in the Yucatán, according to the establishment's Web site. The hacienda dates back to the 17th century, and in its day, it contained about 22,000 acres. As a plantation, it grew henequen plants whose leaves produced a fiber that could be made into rope and twine, once a quite profitable enterprise. After more than a century in business, the hacienda stopped henequen production in 1984.

These days, the estate is less than 3 percent of its original size, but it "may be the best preserved but unrestored hacienda in the Yucatan," the Web site says.

Today, the hacienda — a series of hauntingly beautiful buildings — is a museum dedicated to Yaxcopoil's history. It offers the original machinery used for henequen processing as well as Mayan artifacts found on the grounds. The main building has several drawing rooms, bedrooms and a chapel furnished in late 19th century style as well as gardens.

My room was, I thought, rather attractive: black-and-white floor tiles. Two wrought-iron double beds painted green with green-plaid bedspreads. A dining table. A wicker rocker or two. And an old Mexican cabinet. But I loved most the ceiling. Eighteen or 20 feet high, it topped cream-colored walls.

On the porch outside was an old-fashioned Mexican kitchen: a stretch of tiled shelf along one wall with a sink; a couple of comals, or large cast-iron plates, used, among other things, to make tortillas; and a grate sunk into the shelf to cook on.

Aurora cooked that first night's meal in her own nearby kitchen, and she, Carmina and Paulina walked over to deliver it.

It was obvious from the beginning we were going to have a communications problem. Aurora, Carmina and Paulina spoke no English — in fact, no one who worked at Hacienda Yaxcopoil spoke English. And my Spanish, at best, is incredibly bad.

But Aurora didn't have to speak English to cook well. That first night, she offered a first course of chicken-noodle soup with salsa habanero. "Chiles," Carmina said, attempting to warn me the soup was seriously hot. "Si," I said. "Picante," she continued, assuming I didn't understand the word chiles. "Si," I repeated. She smiled. And the soup was delicious.

My main course was an empanadita, a pork turnover with a roasted tomato and habanero sauce called Xnipec. And for dessert, a candied calabaza. Let's just say candied squash is not my favorite sweet.

The second night, I arrived an hour late for dinner, but Aurora, Carmina and Paulina were waiting patiently. The first course was Caldillo de Huevos, a broth made of beef stock, onions, garlic, potatoes, eggs, cheese, mint and maybe a few other things such as lard.

The main course was Brazo de Chaya. Chaya is a leafy shrub native to the Yucatán Peninsula that is cooked and eaten like spinach. While most cookbooks say Brazo de Chaya is a tamal made of chaya leaves, corn dough, boiled eggs and pumpkin seeds, Carmina told me the tamal I ate was constructed from chaya, masa, queso blanco and salsa de tomate. For the outer shell, chaya was mixed into the tamal's ground corn. Then the shell was rolled out large and long, sort of like an arm — brazo is "arm" in Spanish — wrapped in a banana leaf, steamed and served with tomato salsa.

Dessert was Dulce de Tejocote, a candied fruit — cooked with canela, a softer Mexican cinnamon, and sugar — that I had never heard of or seen. According to Wikipedia, tejocote is a small fruit containing several hard seeds. For the Day of the Dead, this fruit, once candied, is offered to the departed, the Web site says.

The final night was incredible: Sopa de Lima, the Mayan lime and chicken soup with slivered tortillas; three chicken tamales, each one different; and once again, the delicious Dulce de Tejocote.

The best dish of the night was one of the tamales, an almost silklike concoction. Called a Tamal Colado, it was made of masa "strained through cheesecloth, cooked with lard, and cooled to form a gelatinous dough," according to Mexican food expert Diana Kennedy. The chicken is cooked with Recada Rojo, a Mayan achiote paste, and sour orange juice, among other things. The masa, a little chicken, some of the Mexican herb epazote and slices of tomato are wrapped in a banana leaf and steamed. Was it good? Magnificent is a better word.

Though my Mayan cooks and I had a language problem, Carmina wrote in my notebook the dishes her mother cooked and their ingredients.

The daughter also left a message for me in Spanish: "Esperamas que le haya gustado este lugar, la comida aunque no hablemas el miso idoma estuvimos a gusto con usted."

"We hope you liked this place and the food. Even though we don't speak the same language, we've gotten to know you. We are your friends."