Raxruhá

About Raxruhá:

Raxruhá lies in the far north of Alta Verapaz, 115 kilometres beyond Cobán and 330 kilometres from Guatemala City, on low ground at 146 metres. Chisec wraps around it to the west, north and south, and Fray Bartolomé de las Casas takes the eastern side. From the capital you follow the CA-9 and then the CA-14 up through the Verapaces to Cobán, carry on north past Chisec, and turn onto the Franja Transversal del Norte for the last stretch. Buses from Cobán leave from the terminal beside the football stadium in zona 4. Beyond the town the paved road continues east to Fray Bartolomé, Chahal and Izabal, while another route heads north through the San Antonio crossing towards Sayaxché.

The name is Q’eqchi’: rax is green, ru is face and ha is water, so Raxruhá is the river of green water, after the trees that shade its banks. Q’eqchi’ families came here looking for ground to plant maize, and the settlement stayed under San Pedro Carchá until 1972, when it was moved into Chisec. In the 1970s the national agrarian institute, INTA, legalised parcels of 118 cuerdas each for settlers and pushed a road through from Fray Bartolomé to the aldea of Secacao, close to the present town. Residents first asked to become a municipality in 1990, and Congress finally created Raxruhá, the country’s 333rd municipality, by Decreto 10-2008 on 20 February 2008. The 2018 census counted 36,832 people, about 6,000 of them in town; most are Q’eqchi’, and Poqomchi’, Kaqchikel and Achi are spoken by families with roots in Baja Verapaz. The town fair falls on 24 May, for María Auxiliadora.

Farming and cattle carry the economy. Families grow maize, beans, rice, peanuts, achiote and cardamom, and the cattle fincas turn out beef, milk, cheese and cream. Paid work means the private fincas, the oil company and the oil-palm plantations, and many people still leave for farm jobs in Mexico and the United States. The municipality has 65 settlements: a town of six barrios, 13 aldeas and 46 caseríos, grouped in six micro-regions from Cooperativa Sechaj and Yalpemech to Damasco and La Isla. In town life centres on the market, with comedores around it and the businesses along the main street.

The ground is limestone, and under it runs the Río Candelaria. The Cuevas de Candelaria Mucbilhá national park, created in 1999 on the line between Raxruhá and Chisec, protects a system whose main galleries were mapped at 22 kilometres in the 1970s by the Frenchman Daniel Dreux; Los Nacimientos is 5 kilometres from town, Mucbilhá 7 and Camposanto 10, and you can walk them or float through on an inner tube. North of town a pickup takes you to La Unión and a 30-minute boat ride reaches Cancuén, the Maya city with one of the largest palaces ever found. Rain falls most of the year on this flat, low country, and the Río San Simón has overflowed more than once, flooding homes in the aldea of Yalicoc among others. The engineers who rebuilt the Franja raised the roadbed over the stretches that flood, and anyone building a house here should think the same way.

Houses in Raxruhá:

A house in town is almost always sold as land with a house on it, in barrios and colonias such as Las Bugambilias, San José or Chisequito. In San José and Chisequito the municipality has been widening and improving the access streets, which helps when you come to sell. Sellers whose deeds are registered say so in the first line, so ask early if yours does not. Before you commit to one of the houses for sale in Raxruhá, find out how close it sits to the San Simón and how high the floor stands above the street.

Land and Lots in Raxruhá:

New lotificaciones are opening on every side of town. Monte Sion I sells 20 by 20 metre lots that you can reserve with a small down payment, there are plots in barrio Santo Domingo a short walk from the pavement and corner lots with two street fronts in Chisequito, and Colonia Secaco and Lotificación Esmeralda in Yalicoc are adding more. The better-prepared projects offer well water, electricity, street lighting and cobbled or ballast streets, with deeds handed over at the end. For a family planning to build, lots for sale in Raxruhá are the most common way in. Bigger parcels of 1,200 to 1,500 square metres on the road at the entrance or exit of town are in demand from people who want to open a business.

Fincas in Raxruhá:

Rural land comes up in blocks from a few manzanas to several dozen, such as tracts on the road to San Pablo, five minutes from town, offered with good water for crops or cattle. Buyers are ranchers, growers and their neighbours rather than weekend visitors, and oil palm now covers large areas of this part of the Franja. Ask whether the land is fully titled or held only as a possession, and walk it after a week of rain.

Rentals in Raxruhá:

The rental market here is rooms and business premises more than family homes. Rooms with a private bathroom and parking come up a few minutes from the centre, in quiet spots with some garden around them. Commercial space is the other half: premises at the San Antonio crossing and roadside plots of 500 to 1,000 square metres that traders want to lease. Owners with frontage on the main road will find traders asking about a commercial rental in Raxruhá before they have even put up a sign.

FAQ:

• How do I get to Raxruhá?

  It is 115 kilometres past Cobán along the CA-14 and then the Franja Transversal del Norte, about 330 kilometres from Guatemala City. Since 2022 the same road continues paved east to Modesto Méndez in Izabal, so the town is also reachable from the Caribbean side.

• Does land in Raxruhá flood?

  Some of it does. The Río San Simón has flooded homes in the municipality, Yalicoc among them, and CONRED has mapped flood threat levels for the town. Check where a plot falls on that map, ask the neighbours how high the water came last time, and build the floor well above it.

• What should I check on the papers before buying a parcel?

  Much of the farmland around Raxruhá was first handed out as INTA parcels, and some still changes hands as possession rather than registered title. Ask for the finca number and confirm at the property registry that it is in the seller’s name and free of liens. Since 2008 licences and IUSI are handled by the Municipalidad de Raxruhá, not Chisec, so confirm the parcel is on its books.

• What kind of property can I find in Raxruhá?

  Mostly land: 20 by 20 metre lots in new lotificaciones, family houses sold with their plot, and fincas of pasture and cropland. For rent there are rooms near the centre and commercial premises along the main road.

• What is there to see near Raxruhá?

  The Candelaria caves, starting 5 kilometres from town, and the Maya city of Cancuén, reached by pickup and a short boat ride. The Lagunas de Sepalau are about 20 kilometres away and the Río Icbolay about 21.