Petatán

About Petatán:

Petatán lies in the Huista country of northwest Huehuetenango, about 120 kilometres from Huehuetenango city and some 385 from Guatemala City. Jacaltenango lies to the north, Concepción Huista to the east, San Antonio Huista to the west, and Unión Cantinil and Todos Santos Cuchumatán to the south. The usual way in leaves the Inter-American Highway at Camojá, climbs through Santa Ana Huista to San Antonio Huista, and covers the last eight kilometres east on a rural road. The alternative goes up from Huehuetenango through Chiantla, over the Cuchumatanes by Todos Santos Cuchumatán and down through Concepción Huista; it is shorter on the map and much slower on the ground. The town has always lived on a road: the colonial Camino Real between Mexico and Santiago de Guatemala ran through here, and a Franciscan commissary on his way back to Mexico stopped in Petatán in 1586.

Coffee pays for most things. Growers sell parchment coffee to two organisations with premises in town, the Cooperativa Agrícola Integral Axolá and the Asociación de Caficultores Bitenam, and to buyers who drive in from Chiantla; Axolá’s women growers also sell their own coffee under the A’xol Kapeh name. Picking runs from October to January and pulls whole families into the plots, alongside the maize and beans that most households still grow. Cantón Centro holds the municipal palace, where people pay for water and electricity and apply for building licences, plus the Juzgado de Paz, RENAP, a health post, Banrural, the Mi Futuro cooperative, the permanent market and schools up to diversificado. For a hospital or a university you still go to Jacaltenango, San Antonio Huista or Huehuetenango.

The town sits at 1,430 metres, and the municipality spans roughly 1,240 to 1,670 metres of broken ground on spurs of the Cuchumatanes. Its streams, the Chanjón, Secheu, Ocho, Valentón and Axolá, feed the río Huista and the Selegua, and their water ends up in the Angostura reservoir across the border in Mexico. There are 57 springs in a territory this small, which is why the municipality treats its recharge areas and its communal forests at Pamal and Aktaj as ground to protect. The slopes are the catch: Los Trapichitos, Ixmuc and Canlaj are where landslides happen most, and dry-season fires hit the edges toward San Antonio Huista and Jacaltenango. Visitors come for the colonial church of Santiago Apóstol, the Axolá archaeological site in the valley where the town stood before the Spanish moved it, the Wi Chen and Ixmuc waterfalls and the Turicentro Valle Verde.

Almost everyone here is Popti’, and Popti’ is the language you hear in the street. Petatán is more town than countryside: the eight cantons of the cabecera, Centro, San Nicolás, San Rafael, Limares, Nueva Esperanza, Sabino, Valle Verde and San Sebastián, hold about six in ten residents, and Cabic another one in seven. Nearly every family owns the house it lives in. The communal and municipal land the town once held has long since been divided into small private parcels, so land changes hands between local families, a plot or a cafetal at a time. The town fills for the feria of Santiago Apóstol from 23 to 25 July.

Houses in Petatán:

Most houses with full services stand in the town cantons, and those in and around Cantón Centro sit next to the market, the banks and the shops, some of which rent out ground-floor premises. About half the houses in the municipality are concrete block with a flat concrete roof, often built so a second floor can go on later; most of the rest are block or adobe under sheet metal, with a few old adobe houses still roofed in tile. Water reaches homes through community committees, and the municipality has begun taking over the service in Centro, Sabino, San Sebastián, San Nicolás and Valle Verde, so ask which system a house is on. Ask too how wastewater leaves the property, since many homes have relied on latrines draining toward the streams. Cabic, with its four cantons of Centro, Llano, Casa Blanca and Yich K’awik, has its own health post, primary school, hardware stores and building-materials yards, and sits a kilometre from the town on an unpaved road.

Land and Lots in Petatán:

Building lots come up on the paved streets of the town, sold with water and electricity, and in caseríos such as Ixmuc, where plots of a cuerda are offered for construction. Ixmuc, Los Trapichitos and Canlaj are also where the ground slides, so look at the slope above and below a lot before you think about foundations. Out in the caseríos, coffee land in Petatán is worked by growers in Canlaj, Castillejo, Quejná, Chapul, Cabic, Pamal and San Felipe, on holdings from a few cuerdas up to around two hundred. Wet processing needs water, so a spring or stream you have the right to use is worth as much as the bushes. The municipal land-use plan marks out areas for urban expansion and areas for protection, landslide ground and water-recharge zones among them, so ask at the municipality which category a parcel falls in before you agree a price.

FAQ:

• Why does an older deed for land in Petatán say Concepción Huista?

  Until October 2015 Petatán was an aldea of Concepción Huista, and its territory was carved out of that municipality when Congress recreated it. Older escrituras, registry entries and municipal records can still name Concepción Huista, so have a lawyer check that the finca’s entry in the property registry, the boundaries described in the deed and Petatán’s own municipal records all describe the same piece of ground. Where the land has passed between relatives, make sure every heir with a claim signs.

• How do you get to Petatán from Huehuetenango?

  Take the Inter-American Highway toward La Mesilla, turn off at Camojá and follow the road up through Santa Ana Huista to San Antonio Huista; Petatán is about eight kilometres east of there. The other route crosses the Cuchumatanes via Chiantla, Todos Santos Cuchumatán and Concepción Huista, and it is the slower drive. Buses, microbuses and taxis based in town cover both local and outside trips.

• Which areas are prone to landslides?

  Los Trapichitos, Ixmuc and Canlaj see slides most often, and the roads to most caseríos, among them San Felipe, Pamal, Chapul, Axolá, Castillejo and Quejná, get hard to drive in the rainy season. If you are buying in one of them, visit in the wet months and look at the cut banks along the road as well as the plot itself.

• What should I check before buying a coffee parcel?

  The harvest runs from October to January, so if you buy in those months put in writing who keeps the cherries on the bushes. Find out whether the seller delivers to Axolá, to Bitenam or to outside buyers, and whether that arrangement carries over. Varieties here include Bourbon, Caturra, Catuai and Pache, and you will want water on or next to the parcel to wash the beans.

• What services does the town have?

  Electricity reaches almost every home, and water comes through community committees, with the municipality starting to run the service in the central cantons. The town has a health post, schools up to diversificado, a bank branch and two cooperatives with credit, a permanent market, a petrol station and a Juzgado de Paz. Hospital care means a trip to Jacaltenango or Huehuetenango.