San Martín Sacatepéquez

About San Martín Sacatepéquez:

San Martín Sacatepéquez borders San Juan Ostuncalco, Concepción Chiquirichapa and San Mateo to the north, Quetzaltenango and El Palmar to the south-east, and Colomba Costa Cuca to the south-west. One road holds it together. The RD-QUE-03 climbs from Colomba Costa Cuca, runs straight through the town and carries on to San Juan Ostuncalco, the way into Xela. Buses, pick-ups and the trucks of the vegetable trade all share it. Communities away from that road hang off vecinal roads that are dirt, or paved but steep and full of tight bends. In the rainy season landslides hit the RD-QUE-03 and the villages beside it, and the broken western sector around El Rincón is the hardest to reach of all.

About 29,000 people live here, nine in ten of them Mam, and only one in seven in the urban area. They are spread across 63 communities: the town, 28 aldeas, 25 caseríos, a colonia, a paraje and seven coffee fincas. In the north, centre and west people grow potatoes, vegetables and maize, and some forty private mini-irrigation schemes let them harvest right through the dry months. Growers truck that produce to markets across Guatemala and on into El Salvador, often in their own vehicles. In the south the crops change to coffee, bananas and plantains. The town has the hardware stores, building-material yards, pharmacies, Banrural, Banco Industrial and the savings cooperatives the whole municipality depends on, and families in San Martín Chiquito still weave traje on the backstrap loom. The town fair honours San Martín de Tours from 8 to 11 November.

The municipality covers 100 square kilometres, and six-tenths of it is still forest. Coffee takes about a fifth, annual crops a tenth, and houses less than one per cent. The town stands just under 2,500 metres up. South of it rises the Chicabal volcano, whose crater lake at 2,712 metres is one of the most important Mam sacred sites; the lake closes to visitors in early May for the Rogativa por la Lluvia, held forty days after Holy Week, and the volcano is a protected area. Frost and a shortage of water at the end of the dry season are the hazards up top, while the southern aldeas, from Nueva Concepción to Santa Anita, sit in the milder air of the Boca Costa. Slopes everywhere are steep and cut by gullies.

The town has spread until there is no visible line between it and aldeas such as Tui Bul; to anyone driving through, it reads as one place. New houses keep going up along the RD-QUE-03, especially from Las Nubes towards the north-west, many of them on platforms cut into the road bank. Most buyers are local families building on their own land, growers looking for irrigated ground, and families with relatives abroad who send money home; remittances are one of the things the local economy runs on. Services thin out with distance from the town, although Nueva Esperanza, Nueva Concepción, Santo Domingo and San Martín Chiquito have their own schools, and several aldeas have a health post.

Houses in San Martín Sacatepéquez:

Housing is detached family homes, most of them in the town and the aldeas that run into it, with a newer string of houses along the main road. If you are looking at houses for sale in San Martín Sacatepéquez, a place in the town puts you next to the banks, schools and the market; a house out in the aldeas trades that for more land and a longer drive. Look hard at anything built against a road cut or a gully edge, and ask how the house stood up to the last rainy season.

Land and Lots in San Martín Sacatepéquez:

Most of the market is land. In the highland part, plots are sold by the cuerda for potatoes, carrots and other vegetables, and a parcel with its own water or a share in a mini-irrigation scheme can be farmed all year, which dry ground cannot. Lots for a house come up close to the town and along the RD-QUE-03. In the south the land is coffee country on the edge of the Boca Costa, steeper and further from services. When you compare land for sale in San Martín Sacatepéquez, ask about water before you ask about size.

FAQ:

• How far is San Martín Sacatepéquez from Xela?

  About 19 kilometres. You leave Xela towards San Juan Ostuncalco and stay on the RD-QUE-03, which runs through the middle of San Martín and on down to Colomba Costa Cuca. Buses and colectivos run it, and the same road takes you to the turn-off for Laguna Chicabal.

• Why do people call it Chile Verde?

  For the green chillies it was known for. The official name has been San Martín Sacatepéquez since 1902, the year the Santa María eruption ruined the region’s crops, but Chile Verde is still what most people in the area say. Use both names when you search or ask around.

• Can I buy land near Laguna Chicabal?

  Not inside the protected area. The volcano is a protected zone and the lake is a recognised Maya sacred site, so its forest is closed to building. The communities below it, such as Toj Mech, are ordinary farming villages, but if a plot sits on the volcano’s slopes, check the protected boundary with CONAP and the municipality before you pay.

• What should I check before buying a lot along the main road?

  Whether the ground is safe to build on at all. The municipality’s land-use plan treats road verges, the edge of the town and gully sides as landslide zones and restricts new houses there, and many lots along the RD-QUE-03 sit on a cut bank. Confirm the plot with the municipal planning office, then check the deed and any liens at the Segundo Registro de la Propiedad in Quetzaltenango, and make sure the boundaries on the plan match the markers on the ground.

• How different is the south of the municipality?

  Very. The north and centre are cold highland country of potatoes, vegetables and irrigated plots, close to the town. The south is where the Boca Costa begins: coffee, bananas and plantains, milder weather, fincas such as Las Marías and Providencia, and aldeas like Nueva Esperanza and Santo Domingo that act as local centres.