Fray Bartolomé de las Casas

About Fray Bartolomé de las Casas:

Fray Bartolomé de las Casas covers 1,229 square kilometres, which makes it the second-largest municipality in Alta Verapaz and the most thinly settled. San Luis, in Petén, wraps around it to the north and east, Chahal and Cahabón lie to the south, and the Santa Isabel, or Cancuén, river forms part of the line with Petén. The town sits in the south-west corner of that territory, at 170 metres. Cobán is some 110 kilometres to the west on the road through Raxruhá and Chisec, two and a half hours by microbus, with departures every half hour. Guatemala City is around 330 kilometres away by the same route, or you can come in from the east along the Atlantic highway, turning onto the Franja at Cadenas and driving through Chahal. Fray also has a paved airstrip.

Before the 1960s there was no town here. The area was known as Sebol, and under President Miguel Ydígoras Fuentes the national agrarian transformation institute laid it out as a parcelamiento, dividing it into farm parcels for campesino families. Distance and isolation sent many of the first parcelarios back where they came from; those who stayed got a rural school and a health post in 1965. A government accord of April 1980, promulgated on 3 May, made Fray the fifteenth municipality of Alta Verapaz, and the town fair still runs from 30 April to 4 May in honour of the Santa Cruz. Between 1994 and 1996, with the peace process under way, families returning from refuge founded the communities of Resurrección Balam and Nueva Libertad, and people have kept arriving from other departments and other Central American countries. You hear Q’eqchi’ and Spanish in the street; the 2018 census counted 66,141 people, close to nine in ten of them in rural communities.

Farming employs eight in ten people. Family parcels grow maize in rotation with beans, rice and chile, and the municipality is one of the department’s main sources of cardamom, achiote, allspice, cacao and coffee, which the outlying communities bring into town to sell. Much of the cleared land is planted pasture for cattle. Oil palm arrived at scale in 2006, when Naturaceites bought finca Yalcobé, and the company now runs an agro-industrial complex with an extraction plant in the municipality. The town earns the rest of its living as a service centre: patients come from Chisec, Raxruhá, Chahal and San Luis to the Hospital Distrital in Barrio El Magisterio, and there are banks, hotels, restaurants, a permanent market and university degree programmes.

The ground is low and rolling, clay-loam over gentle hills, cut by the Chajmaic, the Sebol and the Cancuén. Before there was a highway, the Sebol was the way north: boats went down the Cancuén towards the Pasión and the Usumacinta. Nine kilometres from town the Sebol is still where families go to swim, along with the bathing spots at Sechactí and La Caoba. Rain falls most of the year, March to May is the only dependable dry spell, and the rivers break their banks two or more times a year, with the town itself, Boloncó, La Caoba II, Sechactí and Poza del Danto among the places hit most often. Most buyers are families after a lot they can build on in stages, often paying in instalments, or farmers and companies adding to their land.

Houses in Fray Bartolomé de las Casas:

Houses in town are mostly built by the families who live in them, and they are sold with their lot. Zona 1 has some larger buildings, such as a 568-square-metre property on 16 Calle offered both as a house and as a hotel, with parking for seven vehicles. In caseríos such as Sexan Ain, fifteen minutes from the centre and two kilometres off the asphalt, houses come with a piece of land around them. Before you commit to one of the houses for sale in Fray Bartolomé de las Casas, find out whether it is on the municipal water and drainage network or on a well and septic tank, because the town has grown faster than both. Ask how high the water came in the last flood too, especially in Sexan Ain and the lower parts of town.

Land and Lots in Fray Bartolomé de las Casas:

New subdivisions are where most buyers in town start. Champeguano, ten minutes from the centre, Brisas de Cantarrana, a kilometre from the road to Los Naranjos, and Vistas de San José sell lots of 15 by 30 metres or 480 square metres, and some sellers finance the purchase themselves over as long as six years. In Colonia Nueva Libertad, 150 metres from the asphalt, larger lots of 50 by 29 metres come up as well. The town has spread onto old pasture with little planning, so make sure the street, water and power reach your lot and not only the subdivision gate. When you compare lots for sale in Fray Bartolomé de las Casas, ask at the municipality whether the sector already has service or is still waiting for it.

Fincas in Fray Bartolomé de las Casas:

Outside town, land is counted in manzanas and caballerías. A 32-manzana farm has been offered in the aldea of La Bacabadilla, 25 minutes from the centre, and at the top end there are fincas of more than seven caballerías on the road to Boloncó, a few kilometres off the Franja, planted with rubber, oil palm, precious hardwoods and maize. The buyers are ranchers, growers and agricultural companies. Large estates here have been carved up again and again, and in some communities land has been occupied or is still being regularised, so a farm’s history matters as much as its soil. Ask for the full chain of registrations, not just the last one.

FAQ:

• How do I get to Fray Bartolomé de las Casas?

  From Cobán it is some 110 kilometres through Chisec and Raxruhá, two and a half hours by microbus with departures every half hour. From Guatemala City you can go via Cobán, around 330 kilometres, or take the Atlantic highway to Cadenas and follow the Franja west through Chahal.

• What should I check before buying land in Fray?

  Land tenure is not settled in many communities here. Some parcels are still being regularised, fincas have been split into pieces, and there have been invasions; the official municipal boundary does not match the ground everywhere either. Confirm at the property registry that the parcel is registered to the seller, get the municipality to confirm the land falls in Fray and not in a neighbouring municipality, and go and see whether anyone is living on it or farming it.

• Does Fray Bartolomé de las Casas flood?

  Parts of it do. The rivers rise two or more times a year and cut services for a while, and 26 communities are exposed. The town itself, Boloncó, La Caoba II, Sechactí, Poza del Danto, Chinacobeha and Sexan Ain are among the places hit hardest. See a property in the rainy season and ask the neighbours where the water reached.

• What services does the town have?

  Fray has the district hospital and a 24-hour care centre, banks, university degree programmes, a permanent market, hotels and restaurants. The countryside is a different story: of the municipality’s 110 settlements, 62 have water service and 60 have electricity, so check both before you buy a rural parcel.

• Where can I swim near Fray?

  The Sebol river, nine kilometres from town, is the favourite. Sechactí and La Caoba have their own river bathing spots.