Quetzaltepeque

About Quetzaltepeque:

Quetzaltepeque, spelled Quezaltepeque on official maps and by its own municipality, covers 236 square kilometres close to the middle of the department of Chiquimula. San Jacinto lies to the north, Olopa and Esquipulas to the east, Concepción Las Minas to the south and Ipala to the west. From Guatemala City the trip is 197 kilometres: the CA-9 Atlantic highway to Río Hondo, then the CA-10 south through Zacapa, Chiquimula and San Jacinto. Esquipulas is 28 kilometres further along the CA-10, or closer by Ruta Nacional 18, and the Honduran border lies just beyond it. Buses running between the capital and Esquipulas every half hour stop at the entrance to town, and mototaxis cover the short trips inside it.

It is one of the oldest towns in the east. A Ch’orti’ settlement stood here when the Spanish arrived around 1530, and Quetzaltepeque was the parish seat for Esquipulas, San Jacinto and the valleys around them until the priests moved to Esquipulas. The Cortes de Cádiz made it a villa on 29 June 1821; in 1903, unaware of that, residents asked for the title again and were granted it a second time. The parish church of San Francisco de Asís was begun in 1756 by a priest, Juan Antonio Gallardo y Barahona, who paid for it himself, and finished by his brother in 1780. The 1976 earthquake split it lengthwise and it was rebuilt in the 1980s, while the municipal hall, built in 1911 and 1912, got its clock tower in 1922. The patron’s fair runs from 8 to 13 November, when the saints of Olopa, San Jacinto and Esquipulas are brought to keep San Francisco company, and on 19 December the Pasada del Santo carries San Francisco Conquistador from one sponsor’s house to the next behind the Torito Pinto and the Chincheneros dancers.

People from here are called cachaceros, after the cachaza, the foam skimmed off boiling cane juice, because for generations families grew sugar cane and made panela. Ox-driven trapiches still turn at the moliendas the town keeps alive. Today maize, beans, coffee and cane share the land with cattle, and coffee keeps climbing in the high aldeas, where growers in Hierba Buena have been training in selective picking to get better prices. Height decides what a parcel is for: grain and cane in the warm valley, coffee on the cooler slopes toward the volcano and Cerro Las Campanas. The rivers La Conquista, Tutunico, Santa Cruz and Padre Miguel run through the municipality and join to form the Río Grande, also called the Shutaque. Thursday and Sunday are market days, when the aldeas come down to sell, and the stalls still carry local rope, baskets, petates, clay comales and the cane sweets called alfeñiques.

Around 30,000 people live in the municipality, spread over some 25 aldeas and more than 80 caseríos, most of them outside the town. Spanish is the everyday language, and the Ch’orti’ roots show mainly in the countryside. The town covers daily needs: a health centre, a magistrates’ court, police, a roads depot, a cooperative and four banks, supermarkets, schools through secondary level and a university extension. Llano Grande, two kilometres out, already counts as part of the urban area, and Yocón sits a kilometre away. Buyers are mostly local families building in town, farmers adding land, and households that want town services within reach of both Chiquimula and Esquipulas.

Houses in Quetzaltepeque:

Houses come up for sale mainly in the town barrios, El Centro, La Ceiba, Las Palmeras, Los Pinos and El Calvario among them, and in Llano Grande. From any of them the park, the market and the banks are a short walk or a mototaxi ride away. This is earthquake country, and the parish church had to be rebuilt after the 1976 quake split it, so look closely at how an older house was built and whether its walls have been reinforced. Ask, too, whether the house drains to the municipal sewer. Out in the aldeas a house nearly always comes with land, which makes the water source and the state of the road in the rainy months part of the price.

Land and Lots in Quetzaltepeque:

Land is where most of the movement is, and most lots for sale in Quetzaltepeque sit either in the town barrios or along the CA-10. In Barrio La Ceiba, two blocks from the supermarket, owners sell house lots of 7 by 20, 8 by 30 and 10 by 20 metres, and subdivisions such as Lotificación Buganvilias sell plots with water and drainage already in place. At Padre Miguel, roadside lots of a few hundred square metres front the paved road to Esquipulas. Behind them, farms of dozens of manzanas change hands as maize, bean, sorghum or pasture land, and now and then a whole finca on the highway near kilometre 197 comes on the market. Higher up, coffee parcels around Hierba Buena and Chiramay are worth the climb only if the track to them holds up through the rains.

FAQ:

• How far is Quetzaltepeque from Chiquimula, Esquipulas and Guatemala City?

  The capital is 197 kilometres away by the CA-9 and the CA-10, about four and a half hours by bus. Chiquimula is some 30 kilometres back up the CA-10 through San Jacinto, Esquipulas is 28 kilometres further on, and Ipala lies 33 kilometres to the west.

• Is a hillside parcel in the aldeas safe to buy?

  See it after a heavy rain before you decide. Slides and washouts have hit communities such as El Común, Azacualpa, Titoque, Los Planes and Charagüín, and slides have blocked the CA-10 itself near Encuentros Abajo. Then ask for the parcel’s entry in the property registry and walk the boundaries with the neighbours, because on broken ground a fence line and the registered area can easily disagree.

• What can I grow on land here?

  It depends on how high the parcel sits. The valley floor suits maize, beans, sorghum and cane, and pasture for cattle, while coffee does best on the upper slopes around Hierba Buena, Chiramay and El Pedregal. A parcel near one of the rivers or with its own spring is worth more than a drier one in the same aldea.

• What services are there in town?

  Banks, a cooperative, supermarkets, a health centre, a magistrates’ court and schools up to secondary level are all in the town, and the market fills on Thursdays and Sundays. For hospital care people go to Chiquimula, where a new national hospital is being built.

• What is there to do around Quetzaltepeque?

  Climb the Chiramay: a 13-kilometre dirt road runs from the cemetery up to caserío Los Planes, where the trail starts, and a four-wheel-drive vehicle makes it much easier. Quetzals can be seen on Cerro Las Campanas, the Calichal caves are in aldea Guatalón and El Chorrerón waterfall is in Las Cebollas. In November the fair fills the town for a week.