San Antonio La Paz

About San Antonio La Paz:

San Antonio La Paz covers 209 square kilometres in the south-west corner of El Progreso, with Sanarate to the north and east and, across the departmental line, Palencia to the south and San José del Golfo to the west. The town stands at 1,240 metres, about 40 kilometres by road from Guatemala City and a little over 40 from Guastatoya, the departmental capital. Nearly everything hangs off the CA-9: the road into town forks off at kilometre 36.4, Agua Caliente sits at kilometre 30, and the aldeas around Dolores and El Carrizo do their shopping in Sanarate. A second way out is now being built to the south. The road from the town to aldea Sansur in Palencia is being paved in hydraulic concrete, with new drains and retaining walls, and in early October 2026 it was about a third done.

The town grew out of a finca called El Encinal, named for the oak and pine woods and the springs it once had. Two stories compete over who founded it, one crediting Justo Rufino Barrios and the other the Spanish, but the name is usually put down to Fray Pedro García, a Franciscan priest from Palencia who arrived on a 13 June and found the people peaceable. A government order of 1831 laid out the plaza, church and offices. The municipal building still stands on that original plot; the church came down in the 1976 earthquake and was rebuilt somewhere else. The feria for San Antonio de Padua falls on 13 June, and at Semana Santa families in Agua Caliente lay sawdust carpets along the procession route.

About 21,000 people lived here in 2018, a little over half of them in areas counted as urban. Close to half of working people farm, mostly maize and beans for the household, with coffee grown for sale in the cooler upper aldeas and tomato on some lower plots. Many others work in Guatemala City, Sanarate or Palencia and travel every day on the CA-9. The ground is worked too: there is kaolin at El Hato and Las Minas, a perlite quarry at El Hato, and clay and bentonite elsewhere, and the quarries hire people from here and from neighbouring towns. Agua Caliente, with its secondary schools, shops and direct buses to the capital, works as a second centre for the communities along the highway.

This is broken, hilly country with only small valleys and river flats, and most of it is better suited to trees and agroforestry than to row crops. The lower half, from the town down to Agua Caliente, El Hato and Dolores, is warm. Llano Largo, Las Moritas, Los Planes and El Naranjo sit higher and cooler, which is why the coffee is up there. The Agua Caliente and Los Plátanos rivers cross the municipality, with hot springs along the Los Plátanos and the El Chorrón waterfall, while deforestation, erosion and streams that run dry in summer are the problems people name first.

Houses in San Antonio La Paz:

The usual home is a single-storey family house in block, though plenty of older adobe houses still stand in town and in the aldeas, often with a yard big enough for fruit trees and a patch of maize. Bigger properties turn up near the highway: one house around kilometre 36.5 sits on a lot of almost 900 square metres. The colonias around Agua Caliente, among them Los Encinos, Valles de Belén, Brisas del Río and Paisajes de Agua Caliente, put you close to the aldea’s schools and its buses to the capital. Beyond those, houses for sale in San Antonio La Paz run from highway properties to plain village houses in Santo Domingo Los Ocotes or El Soyate. Buyers are mostly local families and people who work in the city and want more room than a city budget buys.

Land and Lots in San Antonio La Paz:

Land is where most of the market is. On high ground with paved access, a project sold as Mirador San Antonio La Paz offers lots of around 105 square metres in phases that are already registered and split off, with a reservation deposit, 20 percent down and two to three years to pay the rest. Single lots can be much larger, such as a 48 by 17 metre plot with a small block building already on it. Outside the settlements, land for sale in San Antonio La Paz is measured in manzanas: wooded acreage on the road at Agua Caliente, farm parcels of eight manzanas, land a few kilometres in from the CA-9 near kilometre 37. Since most of the municipality is forest-class land, slope, access and water will decide what you can build far more than the asking price per vara.

Commercial Land on the CA-9 in San Antonio La Paz:

Highway frontage is a market of its own. Plots facing the CA-9 are sold for commercial or mixed use, and at least one still carries the mark of local industry: a parcel of more than two hectares on the corner of the CA-9 and the road into town has an old lime works with two industrial kilns. Around Agua Caliente, the rebuilt IRTRA park, with parking planned for some 1,600 vehicles, will bring heavier weekend traffic to kilometre 29.5. The CA-9 also carries heavy freight to and from the Atlantic ports, so watch how trucks turn in and out of a plot before you pay for its frontage.

FAQ:

• I’m looking at a parcel near El Hato or on the highway. What should I check first?

  Two risks here do not show on the plan. Around El Hato and Las Minas there are kaolin and perlite workings, so ask the Ministerio de Energía y Minas whether a mining licence covers or borders the land, and see whether quarry trucks use the access road. If the plot fronts the CA-9, ask the Dirección General de Caminos how much of it is right of way. Then confirm at the property registry that the parcel has its own registration number, has been formally split from the larger finca, and is being sold by the registered owner rather than an heir whose succession is still pending.

• How do I get to San Antonio La Paz from Guatemala City?

  Take the CA-9 Atlantic highway north-east. Agua Caliente and the IRTRA park come up at kilometre 30, and the turn-off to the town is at kilometre 36.4, about 40 kilometres from the capital in all. Buses and microbuses link the town with the capital, Sanarate and the main aldeas. Once the concrete road to Sansur is finished, the upper aldeas will also have a direct route south to Palencia.

• When does the IRTRA park in Agua Caliente reopen?

  The park closed for a full rebuild, a US$44 million project with new water attractions, a hotel, a restaurant and a cable car joining its lower and upper sections. The works were expected to wrap up around the end of 2026. A six-level car park for about 600 vehicles is already built and space for another thousand is planned, so weekends around kilometre 29.5 will be much busier than before.

• Is water a problem in San Antonio La Paz?

  It depends on where you buy. The town has piped water to the house, but some communities rely on shared taps or springs, and smaller streams have been drying up in recent summers. Ask the neighbours how the water arrives in March and April, and whether the lot has its own connection or shares a community system.

• Can I buy coffee land in the upper aldeas?

  Coffee for sale is grown around Los Planes, Llano Largo, El Naranjo, Las Moritas and Los Gracianos, the cooler side of the municipality toward Palencia. Several of these aldeas have long been reached on dirt roads, although the new concrete road to Sansur passes Los Planes, El Chorro, Llano Largo and Las Navajas. Most of this high ground is forest-class land, so clearing it for a house or new planting needs an INAB licence. Go and see the parcel in the middle of the rainy season before you settle on a price.