Santa Cruz Balanyá

About Santa Cruz Balanyá:

The main road in leaves the Inter-American at kilometre 75.5 and runs four kilometres on asphalt to the town, which is 25 kilometres from the city of Chimaltenango. A second way in starts at kilometre 77 and passes through Chimazat and the hamlet of Chuixilón. The stretch between Chimazat and the town used to be dirt and has been rebuilt in concrete, with gabion walls and a culvert to hold it together through the rainy season. San Juan Comalapa lies to the north, Zaragoza to the east, Patzicía to the south, and Patzicía and Tecpán to the west. Moto-taxis handle the short trips: Chimazat is about ten minutes from the town centre and forty from Chimaltenango.

Most households live off the land. Close to seven hectares in ten are farmed, chiefly potatoes, snow peas and sweet peas, cabbage and strawberries, and the produce goes to markets at home and abroad. Tomatoes, green beans, carrots, squash and blackberries also leave along the new road. Flat ground helps, and so does being a few minutes from the country’s main highway. Chimazat and Chuixilón are the strawberry and fruit-seedling end of the municipality, and handwoven textiles still bring in money for some families.

Frost is the risk every grower here works around. It reaches the whole municipality and burns vegetables, maize and beans when the temperature drops, and strong winds, volcanic ash and dry spells add to the losses. In the rainy season, wet slopes around Chuixilón and Chimazat slide in places, and hillsides stripped of trees lose soil and send runoff toward the houses below. A little over a quarter of the municipality is still natural forest, though it keeps giving ground to fields and new homes. Water is tight as well: springs are drying up, and many growers have dug their own wells to irrigate.

Around 11,000 people live in Santa Cruz Balanyá, the great majority of them Kaqchikel Maya. Roughly two in three live in the town, across the cantones of La Independencia, Libertad, La Unión and El Progreso. Nearly everyone else lives in Chimazat, whose cantones include El Esfuerzo, Chiyax, Central and Chichavac, while Chuixilón is a hamlet of a few hundred. Spanish is now the first language in most homes, and about one resident in five speaks Kaqchikel. The town’s secondary schools take in students from Chimazat and Chuixilón and from neighbouring villages in Patzicía and Tecpán.

Houses in Santa Cruz Balanyá:

Homes for sale in the centre stand on tight plots: two-storey houses on 6 by 18 metres, or family houses on 9 by 18 with four bedrooms, a patio, a covered corridor and a pila for washing. The town has grown quickly and with little planning, houses and shops filling in around the centre, and some were built close to slide-prone ground, flood channels or open dumps. Services are the easier part. More than 1,500 homes in town have piped water and drainage, and most of the sewage goes to a treatment plant. If you look at houses for sale in Santa Cruz Balanyá out in Chimazat, ask where the wastewater goes, because drainage only covers part of Cantón El Esfuerzo.

Land and Lots in Santa Cruz Balanyá:

Building land is sold by the cuerda or by measured frontage. In sectors such as Chicumez, a cuerda de sitio comes with water and power at the boundary, plots of about 13 by 40 metres are offered near town, and in Chimazat some owners split land into lots from half a cuerda up. Building here has gone ahead largely without local rules, so any building lot in Santa Cruz Balanyá deserves a visit to the municipality to find out what you may build and how far the water main and power line reach. Go back and see the plot in the wet months, since parts of Chimazat and Chuixilón give way when the ground is soaked. A cuerda is not the same size everywhere in the highlands, so have the square metres written into the deed before you sign.

Farmland in Santa Cruz Balanyá:

Crop parcels from a few cuerdas to 30 and more come up for sale, and now and then a whole finca. Most people who farm here rent the fields they plant rather than own them, so a parcel on the market may have a tenant with a crop in the ground; ask whether there is a lease and when it runs out. Produce buyers often pay by the cuerda and set the price themselves, which is why irrigation and a decent road weigh so heavily in what farmland in Santa Cruz Balanyá earns. The new concrete road from Chimazat shortens the trip for strawberries and vegetables that have to arrive fresh. Before you make an offer, find out whether the field has a well or rights to a spring, and how hard frost has hit it in recent years.

FAQ:

• How do I get to Santa Cruz Balanyá from Guatemala City?

  It is 81 kilometres. Head west on the Inter-American and turn off at kilometre 75.5 onto the paved spur, which runs four kilometres into town. You can also turn off at kilometre 77 and come in through Chimazat.

• What should I check before buying land in Chimazat or Chuixilón?

  Start with the ground. Both places have slides in the rainy season, so look at the slope and where water runs off. Then find out who is working the plot, because much of the cropland is rented and the person farming it is often not the owner. At the property registry, confirm that the seller is the registered owner and that the cuerda you are offered has been split off and registered on its own, not still sitting inside a family holding or an undivided inheritance.

• Is frost a problem for farmland here?

  Yes, across the whole municipality. A cold night can burn vegetables, maize and beans, so talk to whoever has planted the field before about what frost has cost them.

• What services does the town have?

  The town has piped water, drainage, electricity, cable, internet and schooling up to the end of secondary. Chimazat has a health post, schools up to lower secondary and power throughout, but drainage only in part of Cantón El Esfuerzo.

• When is the Santa Cruz Balanyá town fair?

  On 3 and 4 May, in honour of the Holy Cross, with 3 May the main day. Expect processions, sports and cultural events, fireworks and the burning of toritos, the firework-laden bull frames.