Malacatancito

About Malacatancito:

Malacatancito fills the southern tip of Huehuetenango department. Its 268 square kilometres border Huehuetenango municipality and Santa Bárbara to the north, Santa Lucía La Reforma and San Bartolo in Totonicapán to the south, and San Carlos Sija in Quetzaltenango and Sipacapa in San Marcos to the west. The Inter-American Highway crosses it from east to west, paved the whole way, and is the main road into the department from Guatemala City, 248 kilometres away. The first turn-off for the town is at kilometre 245.8, and the centre lies little more than a kilometre in. Several aldeas are still reached on dirt roads, and those are at their worst in the rainy season.

The name is a diminutive. In colonial times the town was Santa Ana Malacatán, from a Nahuatl word for a place by the spindles, and it was renamed so it would no longer be mistaken for Malacatán in San Marcos. Mercedarian friars ran a parish from here that took in Santa Bárbara, Colotenango, Ixtahuacán and San Gaspar Ixchil. The church they began in 1654 and finished in 1694 still stands in the centre, now under a sheet-metal roof, and the aldea of Pueblo Viejo holds the remains of the older Malacatán. Santa Ana is still the patron, the fiesta runs from 23 to 26 July, and most residents are ladino, speaking Spanish and K’iche’.

Outside the town, farming sets the pace. Families grow maize, beans and coffee, keep cattle, and sell cheese, cream and butter along with ocote and timber to San Bartolo, Sipacapa, Santa Bárbara and Huehuetenango city. Organised women’s groups have taken up macrotúneles, long tunnels covered in plastic and mesh where they raise tomatoes and other vegetables, and two of them serve as seedling nurseries for the rest. Huehuetenango is close enough for a daily trip to work, school or a hospital, and that closeness is what gives ground near the highway its edge.

The land is broken and wooded. Forest and scattered trees cover more than half the municipality, crops and pasture just over a fifth, and the rest is scrub and regrowth. The Serchil runs beside the town and, with the Púcal, forms the Río Negro, the upper Chixoy. The dry corridor has reached this end of Huehuetenango, much of the municipality is short of drinking water, and so many houses rely on their own well. Piped drainage covers only the town and part of Cácum. Buyers tend to be local families, or people working in Huehuetenango who want more ground than a city lot gives them.

Houses in Malacatancito:

The houses on offer are a mixed group. You will find two-storey block houses with a terrace, power, drainage and their own artisan well, a few minutes’ drive from the asphalt. Others sit inside fully walled plots of two cuerdas or more, with the house built on terraces and room left for a garden. The town is laid out in zonas, and there you can find large three-level family houses on lots of more than 900 square metres. There is also a small gated fraccionamiento of a dozen houses with 24-hour security. When you compare houses for sale in Malacatancito, ask how the water arrives and how far the gate is from the paved road.

Land and Lots in Malacatancito:

Land is where most of the choice lies. Parcels are sold by the cuerda, from a single cuerda with street frontage and a well to tracts of eight cuerdas or more, and what buyers weigh first is distance from the CA-1 and access to water. In aldea Cácum there are plots ten minutes from the highway with open road access, in La Cal there is ground fronting the paved road, and in Cúcal there are larger, mostly flat parcels near coffee that suit a country house. Small lotificaciones of 18 by 18 metre lots have also opened a few minutes from the town. If you are weighing land for sale in Malacatancito, walk it in the dry months, when you can see how much water there really is.

FAQ:

• How far is Malacatancito from Huehuetenango city?

  The town is 17.5 kilometres from the departmental capital along the Inter-American Highway, paved all the way. You can leave the CA-1 for the centre at three points, the first at kilometre 245.8. Aldeas away from the highway take longer, and some are still reached on dirt roads.

• Will a property in Malacatancito have water?

  Not automatically. Much of the municipality is short of drinking water and the dry corridor reaches into this part of Huehuetenango, so many houses depend on an artisan well. Ask whether the well is inside the property or shared, how it holds up in March and April, and whether there is a municipal connection at all. Outside the town and part of Cácum there is no piped drainage, so budget for a septic system.

• What should I check before buying land beside the Inter-American Highway?

  Start with the slope. In heavy rain the CA-1 between kilometres 247 and 249 has had landslides and mudflows, and one was tied to earthworks on a roadside plot, so a cut bank or loose fill on your land is both a cost and a liability. Find out where the highway right of way ends, because this stretch has seen road replacement works and verge clearing. Then confirm at the property registry that the registered finca matches the ground you walked, and have the area written in square metres in the deed, since a cuerda is not the same size everywhere in Guatemala.

• What do people in Malacatancito live on?

  Mostly farming and livestock: maize, beans, coffee, cattle, and dairy sold as cheese, cream and butter, plus ocote and timber. Women’s groups grow tomatoes and vegetables in macrotúneles. The city adds jobs, schools and services within easy reach, and that is the pull behind plots near the highway.

• What is the town itself like?

  Small, mostly ladino, and built around the parque and the colonial church of Santa Ana. The centre is divided into zonas, and the big week of the year is the patronal fiesta at the end of July. For major shopping or hospital care, people drive to Huehuetenango.