San Pedro Soloma

About San Pedro Soloma:

Coming from Huehuetenango city, the RN-9N goes up past Chiantla, over the top of the Cuchumatanes and down by way of San Juan Ixcoy before it reaches Soloma. From here the same highway carries on to Santa Eulalia and Santa Cruz Barillas, so most of the traffic for the north of the department passes through the town. The municipality covers 264 square kilometres, with Santa Eulalia to the north and east, San Juan Ixcoy to the south and San Rafael La Independencia to the west. This is a mountain road, and storm damage has closed the stretch between San Juan Ixcoy and Soloma for more than two weeks at a time. Pickups and small trucks, many of them paid for with wages earned in the United States, have crowded the centre for years.

Most families still farm. Maize and beans come first, with wheat, broad beans, cabbage and plums on the colder ground, and many households raise pigs. Apple orchards went in from 1975, but most of them have since been abandoned. The town itself lives from trade: more than 300 vendors work out of the municipal market, and carpenters, blacksmiths and bakers supply the aldeas around it. For decades work has also meant leaving, first for the harvests on the Pacific slope and in southern Mexico, then for the United States, where some 7,000 solomeros were already living by the end of the 1990s. That money shows in the trucks, in the shops and above all in the newer houses.

Steep slopes of pine, fir, cypress and oak close in the valley. Much of the municipality lies on gradients of 32% or more, and its soils are rated for forest rather than the plough: good for conifers, potatoes, vegetables and cold-country fruit such as apple and peach, poor for anything that needs deep, level ground. The rainy season is what turns that slope into a building question. At half past five on the morning of 20 June 2017, after days of rain, part of Cerro Wachuná gave way onto the road and the houses below it near the town, burying a minibus of people on their way to work; twelve people died. The aldea of Ch’ib’al has had its own landslide, and heavy rain has undercut plots elsewhere in the municipality.

Close to 65,000 people live in San Pedro Soloma, and more than nine in ten are Q’anjob’al. The town was formed in 1559, when a judge of the colonial Audiencia ordered the small settlements of San Andrés, San Sebastián, San Miguel and San Francisco Soloma gathered into one. Earthquakes wrecked it in 1773, a fire burned half of it in 1884, and the 1902 earthquake hit it again. Besides barrios such as San Antonio and La Libertad, the municipality counts 22 aldeas and dozens of caseríos, among them Ixtiapoc, Bacaú, Ixtenam, Pueblo Nuevo and Yulchen, and in the mid-2000s some outlying communities were still two days’ walk from town on footpaths alone. Buyers are mostly local: traders in the cabecera, families moving in from the aldeas and migrants building from abroad. The Pajaj falls, close to 100 metres high, rank among the tallest in Guatemala, and the patron saint’s fair fills the town in the last week of June.

Houses in San Pedro Soloma:

The adobe and wooden houses that once set the tone of the centre have been giving way to block buildings of several storeys, often to designs chosen by relatives working in the United States. Adobe homes are still common in the aldeas. When you look at houses for sale in San Pedro Soloma, start with what stands above the lot: a cut bank behind the back wall, or a gully that runs with water in the rains, deserves more of your attention than the kitchen finishes. Ask whether the street has a sewer connection or the house drains to a septic tank. On a sloping lot, find out whether the house stands on rock or on fill.

Rentals in San Pedro Soloma:

Renting here usually means a room in one of the barrios close to the centre, such as San Antonio. Whole houses come up for rent too, sometimes offered to businesses that need space in town. A room is the obvious choice for anyone who works or studies in the cabecera and keeps a family home in an aldea. Agree in writing what the rent covers, water and electricity above all.

Land and Lots in San Pedro Soloma:

Building lots of different sizes are sold along the roads leading out of the centre, and the better ones have asphalt all the way from the casco urbano to the gate. For families coming down from the aldeas, a lot like this is the usual first step into town. In the countryside the market is inherited farmland: small plots, nearly always on a slope, where dividing land between heirs has long been a source of friction. Most of that ground does better under trees, potatoes or orchards than under a house. When you weigh up lots for sale in Soloma, walk the boundary, look at the hillside above, and ask how the access road holds up in the wet months.

FAQ:

• How do I get to San Pedro Soloma from Huehuetenango?

  Take the RN-9N north past Chiantla and San Juan Ixcoy. Buses bound for Santa Eulalia, Barillas and the rest of the north all come through Soloma. In the rainy season slides can block the mountain stretches, so check the state of the road before you leave.

• How do I judge landslide risk on a property in Soloma?

  Treat it as the first question, not the last. The Cerro Wachuná slide of June 2017 came down on homes and on the road beside the town, and aldeas such as Ch’ib’al have had slides of their own. Look at the ground above the property as well as the lot itself: fresh cracks, leaning trees, springs that appear in the rains and cut banks with no retaining wall are all warning signs. Ask the municipality whether the sector was flagged after earlier slides, and if you can, walk the site after a day of heavy rain.

• What should I check on the title of a lot in Soloma?

  If the lot was cut from a larger family field on the edge of town, ask whether that split was ever registered. Rural plots are often divided among heirs without the papers catching up, so find out whether the piece has its own finca number or rests only on possession. Properties in Huehuetenango are registered at the Segundo Registro de la Propiedad in Quetzaltenango, where a notary can confirm the owner, the measurements and any liens. Make sure every heir with a claim signs, and have the right of way into the lot written into the deed.

• Should I buy in the town or in an aldea?

  The cabecera has the market, the shops and most of the services, and it is where many aldea families end up moving. In the countryside, Ixtiapoc and Bacaú have been among the better-served communities, while the most remote caseríos depended on footpaths for a long time. If you mean to live here rather than farm, the town is the practical choice; if you want land to work, the aldeas are where it is.

• When is a good time to visit Soloma?

  The fair for San Pedro takes over the last week of June and peaks on 29 June, with marimba, parades and the town at its fullest. To look at property calmly, skip that week and come between December and March, when the roads out to the aldeas are in better shape.