Joyabaj

About Joyabaj:

Joyabaj covers 304 square kilometres on the southern edge of Quiché, in the Motagua basin, where the Sierra de Chuacús drops to some of its lowest ground. Santa Cruz del Quiché, the department seat, is 45 kilometres away on a paved road through Zacualpa, Chinique and Chiché, and buses and microbuses work the route. Guatemala City can be reached three ways. The long road, paved the whole way, follows the Inter-American Highway to Los Encuentros and then turns north through Chichicastenango and Santa Cruz, 218 kilometres in all. The short one is around 100 kilometres through San Juan Sacatepéquez and Pachalum, but the Joyabaj–Pachalum section has long been the slow part, with dirt stretches that have been under improvement work. A third road comes up from Chimaltenango through San Martín Jilotepeque.

The town is where the whole municipality comes to buy and sell. The main street into Joyabaj carries the bank branches, a supermarket, bakeries, pharmacies, hardware shops and places to eat, and the hospital distrital, the court and the only schools offering diversificado and university courses are all in town. On market days the trade spills into the central park, and cattle fairs are held every week in town and in several of the villages. Joyabaj makes its own butter, cheese and cream, longaniza and chorizo, and bread. Panela used to be boiled on the big haciendas; today families make it by hand.

More than 100,000 people live in the municipality, four out of five of them outside the town, spread across 24 aldeas, 75 caseríos and dozens of smaller colonias and parajes. The land changes with height. The mountains to the north and east are temperate, the centre and west around the town are milder, and the south falls away toward the Motagua into warm country, which is how one municipality grows maize and beans alongside sugar cane, orange, mandarin, lime, mango, jocote, zapote and loroco. Chuaquenum, five kilometres out on a paved road, is the busiest village after the town, with its own shops and dairies, while El Boquerón sits 20 kilometres away at the end of a dirt road that stays open all year. Besides Spanish, people speak K’iche’ in the west, Kaqchikel toward the Motagua and Xoy, a variant of their own, and some rural villages are entirely ladino.

The name comes from the K’iche’ Xoy Abaj, “stone of the Xoy”, and the full name is Santa María Joyabaj. Dominican friars from the convent at Sacapulas founded the town around 1549, and it has belonged to Quiché since the department was created in 1872. Joyabaj is known as the cradle of the Palo Volador: every August, during the feria for the Virgen del Tránsito, dancers swing down on ropes from a pole 30 metres high in the central park, with marimba playing and rockets going up. Local work is scarce and farm wages are low, so many joyabatecos leave for other parts of Guatemala or for the United States. The bank branch at El Boquerón runs mostly on the money they send home. Meanwhile the town keeps spreading outward, without much planning, onto what used to be pasture at its edges.

Houses in Joyabaj:

Houses for sale are mostly in the town’s own barrios, La Democracia, La Libertad and the Barrio Central, a few blocks from the park, the market and the hospital. Urban lots are narrow and houses grow upward: a home on six by fifteen metres in La Democracia near the cemetery, a ten-by-ten in La Libertad behind the hospital, three-storey houses back in La Democracia. A concrete slab roof is what lets a family add a floor later, so ask whether you are looking at slab or at timber and zinc sheet. Outside town, villages such as San Antonio Coyolla have family houses with full services already connected.

Rentals in Joyabaj:

The rental market is small and sits mostly in town. Larger houses on good streets are let to companies, NGOs and offices that want space near the public institutions and the banks. For shorter stays there are cabins at San José Chotuj, two and a half kilometres from the central plaza, used by people in town for work or on a visit.

Land and Lots in Joyabaj:

Land is the bigger part of this market, and it is measured in cuerdas. In town, building lots such as sixteen by fifteen metres in colonia Villa Linda, in barrio La Democracia, come with two water rights attached. In the aldeas, land for sale in Joyabaj runs from a single cuerda in Chosavic to ten cuerdas at Las Joyas Laguna Seca or Pueblo Viejo and twelve and a half at San Juan Los Llanos, several of them with a spring on the land. Bigger holdings are counted in manzanas, such as the six at Caquil with good ballast material on site. The size of a cuerda varies from place to place, so get the area in square metres written into the deed.

FAQ:

• How far is Joyabaj from Guatemala City?

  The shortest route is around 100 kilometres through San Juan Sacatepéquez and Pachalum, but the stretch up from Pachalum has had unpaved sections, so check its condition before you count on it. The alternative that is paved end to end goes by Los Encuentros, Chichicastenango and Santa Cruz del Quiché, a 218-kilometre run. From Santa Cruz del Quiché itself it is 45 kilometres on asphalt.

• What should I check before buying land in Joyabaj?

  Start with the water. Town lots are sold with derechos de agua and village land is often priced on its spring, so confirm that the water right passes to you with the parcel and that the spring is not shared with the neighbours. If the land lies toward the east, look at which municipality the deed names: Pachalum was part of Joyabaj until 1986, and a parcel near the line can carry older papers that no longer match. Then confirm the inscription in the property registry and that the measured area matches the deed. If the access runs over the northern roads, drive them in the rainy season, when the road cuttings are prone to slides.

• When is the Joyabaj feria?

  The feria titular runs from 10 to 15 August in honour of the Virgen del Tránsito. The Palo Volador is danced in the central park, together with the Torito and the Moros y Cristianos, to marimba and rockets.

• Which services are in town, and which are not in the villages?

  The hospital distrital, the banks, the permanent market, the court, and diversificado and university courses are all in the town itself. Most villages have a primary school, but further schooling and most health care mean a trip into town, as there is only one community health post outside it. Chuaquenum and El Boquerón have their own shops, and El Boquerón also has a bank branch.

• What can I grow on farmland in Joyabaj?

  That depends on where the parcel sits, because the municipality runs from temperate mountains in the north and east to warm country in the south. Farms here grow maize, beans, sugar cane, citrus, mango, jocote, zapote and loroco, and many families keep cattle, sold at the weekly livestock fairs. What the neighbouring plots grow is your best guide to what yours will.