San Andrés

About San Andrés:

The town faces the island of Flores across the water, climbing a hill on the north shore of Lake Petén Itzá. By road you reach it round the western end of the lake from San Benito and Santa Elena, where the Mundo Maya airport, the regional hospital and the big shops are, and the same road carries on a couple of kilometres to San José. Boats still cross from the island. It was on one of them, more than thirty years ago, that a passenger named Augusto Barrios Andrade watched the roofs shining on the hill and called the place “Cerrito de Plata”; a local teacher, Ángel Boanerges, put the phrase into verse and the town kept it. Behind the town the municipality covers 8,874 square kilometres, bordering Campeche and Tabasco in Mexico to the north and west, San José to the east, and Flores, San Benito and La Libertad to the south.

San Andrés is named for the apostle Andrew, and its first settlers were Yucatec Maya. Itzá is still heard here, along with Spanish, Q’eqchi’, Kaqchikel and Poqomchi’. The church bells are dated 1718. In the 1930s this was a chicle town, filled every November by chicleros coming out of the forest for the fair, and the Chatona, the giant doll now danced at fiestas all over Petén, was born here in memory of Petrona, a woman from Campeche who opened the dancing at that fair every year until a snakebite killed her. The fair still fills the second half of November, with the novena from the 21st and the feast of San Andrés on the 30th. More than 34,000 people live in the municipality, but fewer than four in ten of them in town; the rest are spread between the aldeas of Carmelita and Paso Caballos and dozens of caseríos along the roads into the forest.

In town, people earn their living from services, teaching and commerce. In the countryside it is maize, beans, pepitoria, vegetables and root crops such as macal, yuca and camote. The forest is the other big employer. The Asociación Forestal Integral San Andrés, AFISAP, has managed a community concession of almost 52,000 hectares since 1998, cuts FSC-certified timber, runs a sawmill and plant in Barrio Noreste, harvests xate and honey, and pays for more than 20,000 days’ work a year. It also runs the Ixcalab Spanish school on the lakeshore in the old part of town, whose students board with San Andrés families. Deeper in, the tourism committee of Carmelita takes visitors to El Mirador, and Paso Caballos sits beside the source of the San Pedro river and the Maya site of Waka’.

The town is laid out in barrios that climb from the water: El Centro, Norte, Noreste, Villa Nueva, Buena Vista, 20 de Octubre, El Porvenir, Las Flores, Nueva Esperanza, Urbanización Tzimintun and the Colonia Municipal. The higher you go, the better the view and the steeper the street. The low strip along the shore is the ground the lake takes back in its high-water years, and it has already flooded the lakeside tourist area more than once. Most buyers are local families building on inherited or newly bought plots, people who work in San Benito and Santa Elena and would rather live on a quieter hill with a view, and a few from outside who want a house by the lake.

Houses in San Andrés:

Most houses are single-storey and sit on generous plots, with room left over for a yard, fruit trees or a second building. The view is what sells. One house in Barrio 20 de Octubre stands on 1,280 square metres looking out over the lake, and three-bedroom, two-bathroom homes of about 130 square metres with a garage come up with the water as a backdrop. When you compare houses for sale in San Andrés, Petén, drive up to the house as well as walking it, because some of the upper streets are steep. Find out where the house’s wastewater goes, whether the plot measures what the deed says, and whether that deed is registered in the seller’s name.

Land and Lots in San Andrés:

Building land comes in two sizes. At the edge of town and along the roads out, lotificaciones such as Prados del Valle sell 15 by 20 metre lots of 300 square metres on the developer’s own financing, and newer ones have opened past Sacpuy. Inside town, larger urban parcels turn up now and then, like a 2,849 square metre site made of three unified fincas, 400 metres back from the lake and high enough to look over it. Lots in and around town suit families who want space and a view without moving far from San Benito, and lots for sale in San Andrés usually cost far less than lake frontage. With a lotificación, the questions are practical ones: is the water main already at your boundary or only on the plan, and on what date does your lot become a finca of its own at the registry?

Farms and Large Parcels in San Andrés:

Out towards Sacpuy and Carmelita, land stops being measured in metres. It is sold by the manzana and, at the large end, by the caballería, for farming or to hold as a long-term asset. On the road to Paso Caballos only Sacpuy and El Habanero lie outside the protected area; nearly everything else sits in the reserve’s buffer zone, its multiple-use zone or its national parks, where CONAP decides what can be cleared and planted. In Laguna del Tigre some communities live under agreements with CONAP that allow them to stay, and others have received eviction orders. With any large parcel, find out which zone it falls in first and talk about price second.

FAQ:

• How do I get to San Andrés from Flores?

  Drive out through Santa Elena and San Benito and follow the road round the western end of the lake; San José is a couple of kilometres further on. You can also hire a boat from the island, which is the best way to see why the town is called Cerrito de Plata.

• What should I check before buying land outside town?

  Look at the reserve map before you look at the deed. Almost the whole municipality is inside the Maya Biosphere Reserve, and each zone has its own rules on clearing, farming and building. Rural communities here have very different legal standing, from agreements with CONAP to eviction orders, and a possession document is not the same thing as a registered finca. Ask CONAP which zone the parcel is in, then confirm the registered owner, the area and any liens at the property registry. If the land was put together from several fincas, check that the unification itself has been registered.

• Can the lake flood property in San Andrés?

  On the shore, yes. Lake Petén Itzá rises and falls over cycles of several years, and in its high years it has covered the lakeside tourist area of San Andrés just as it has the malecón in Flores. Ask the neighbours how far the water came, look for marks on walls and docks, and if you want to sleep easy, buy halfway up the hill or higher.

• What services do homes in town have?

  Nearly the whole town has piped water, and the municipality collects rubbish at no charge. What it lacks is any treatment of wastewater, so ask where each house drains. The aldeas are another matter: Sacpuy, 18 kilometres from town, does not get water every day, and anything beyond a minor ailment means a trip to San Benito.

• Where are the hospital, banks and bigger shops?

  San Andrés has a health centre, schools up to diversificado level and weekend classes at the Universidad Rural. For the regional hospital, the banks and larger shops you go round the lake to San Benito and Santa Elena, which is also where the Mundo Maya airport is.