Nebaj

About Nebaj:

Nebaj sits at 1,900 metres in a valley of the eastern Cuchumatanes, in the north of Quiché. The town is 91 kilometres from Santa Cruz del Quiché and 254 from Guatemala City, on a paved departmental road that runs through Sacapulas and stays open all year. The municipality covers 608 square kilometres, with Ixcán to the north, Chajul and Cotzal to the east, Cunén and Sacapulas to the south, and five Huehuetenango municipalities to the west: Chiantla, Aguacatán, San Juan Ixcoy, Santa Eulalia and Barillas. Extraurbano buses, microbuses and pickups carry people and goods around it, while taxis and mototaxis handle the short runs inside town. The farthest communities are a pickup or four-wheel-drive trip away.

Of the three Ixil towns, Nebaj is where public offices and commerce for the whole region come together. Its hospital takes patients from Chajul, Cotzal and Cunén as well as from Nebaj, and a dozen health posts are spread through the rural area. Thursday is the busiest market day, when vendors bring tomatoes, chiles, live poultry and Ixil weaving into the centre. In the aldeas most families grow maize and beans, and Acul, over the pass from town, has made a name for its Chancol cheese. The Universidad Ixil, founded in 2011, teaches across Nebaj, Chajul and Cotzal without a single campus.

The name comes from the Ixil for “place where water is born”, after the springs that rise in many of its communities. On the edge of town lies Xe’Baj, the largest archaeological site in the Ixil area, dug by Carnegie Institution archaeologists in the late 1940s. North of the valley the ground falls towards Ixcán, and the La Vega I, La Vega II and Las Brisas hydroelectric plants are licensed on rivers such as the Xacbal. Salquil Grande, 23 kilometres northwest of town, is the second-largest settlement and a small centre of its own. Off the asphalt, the tracks out to the aldeas turn to mud in the rainy season, so see a plot in the wet months before you commit.

At the 2018 census the municipality had 72,686 people, nearly all of them Maya and close to three-quarters under 35. Ixil and Spanish are both spoken, and almost everyone was born here. People live across ten microregions, and some communities, among them Turanza, Nueva Libertad, Vicalámá and Sumal Chiquito, were settled after 1998 by families of the Comunidades de Población en Resistencia, who had spent the war years in the mountains. The buyers are local: families building close to town or adding ground in the aldea they come from. The year’s big date is the fair of the Virgen de la Asunción, which peaks on 15 August.

Houses in Nebaj:

Just over half the homes in the municipality have timber walls and a third are concrete block, most of them under sheet-metal roofs. A flat concrete roof, the casa de terraza, leaves room to build another floor later. In cantons such as Xemamatze, Vitzal, Xecax and Batzbaca, what comes up is mostly family homes on small lots, and a terraza house with four bedrooms on half a cuerda is the kind of offer you will see. Ask whether the street is on the town drainage, because nearly two-thirds of households in the municipality are not, and in the aldeas wastewater mostly runs in the open. If the houses for sale in Nebaj that catch your eye are timber, check where the posts meet the ground.

Rentals in Nebaj:

Renting happens almost entirely in town. Whole family houses with four bedrooms are let in the cantons, and private rooms near the centre suit someone posted to Nebaj for a season at the hospital, a school or a municipal office. Furnished places by the month exist too. Before you sign, put the deposit and who pays the electricity in writing. Ask as well whether water reaches a tap inside the house, because in one home in five across the municipality the pipe stops outside.

Land and Lots in Nebaj:

Most of what sells in Nebaj is land, priced by the cuerda. Single cuerdas come up at the roadside in Xolá and in aldea Río Azul, while holdings of forty cuerdas or more of mostly flat farmland appear in places like Batz Saja. A cuerda is not the same size everywhere, so write the area in square metres into the contract. Since 1903 most of the municipality has been one great municipal ejido, held in the name of the municipality and its residents, and many parcels sit inside it rather than on a private finca. Before you settle on lots for sale in Nebaj, find out whether the seller holds a registered finca of their own or only a right inside the ejido, and drive out to the parcel after a week of rain.

FAQ:

• How do I get to Nebaj?

  From Guatemala City it is 254 kilometres: the Inter-American Highway to Los Encuentros, north to Santa Cruz del Quiché, then 91 kilometres more on paved road through Sacapulas. Buses and microbuses run the route, and once you are in the Ixil area, microbuses connect Nebaj with Chajul and Cotzal.

• What should I check before buying land in Acul or Tzalbal?

  Start with the name on the register. In 1983 and 1984, when Acul became the first model village of the Ixil area, the State cut parts of Acul and Tzalbal out of the Nebaj ejido and registered them as national property, and residents only found out in 2011. Order a certificate from the Segundo Registro de la Propiedad in Quetzaltenango, which keeps the records for Quiché, and see whether the land stands in the name of the State, the municipality, a community or the seller. Do the same anywhere in the municipality, since most land lies inside the ejido and a private sale may pass on possession without registered title.

• Is there a hospital in Nebaj?

  Yes. The hospital in town serves Nebaj, Chajul, Cotzal and Cunén, and twelve health posts cover the rural communities. There are private clinics as well, and for specialist care people travel to Santa Cruz del Quiché or Guatemala City.

• How far are the aldeas from town?

  Acul is over the pass, close enough to walk in under an hour, and Tzalbal lies just under ten kilometres north of Acul. Salquil Grande, the second-largest settlement, is 23 kilometres northwest. The most remote communities are reached by pickup or four-wheel drive, so ask how a vehicle gets in before you look at the price.

• What is there to see around Nebaj?

  Come on a Thursday to see the market at its fullest, or in mid-August for the fair of the Virgen de la Asunción. Xe’Baj, the old Ixil centre on the edge of town, and the walk over to Acul fit easily into one day.