La Reforma

About La Reforma:

La Reforma sits in the east of San Marcos and is ringed on every side by other San Marcos municipalities: San Cristóbal Cucho to the north, El Quetzal to the east and south, and Nuevo Progreso to the west. Rivers draw much of that line. The Canoj, and further down the Chisná, separate it from El Quetzal, while the Ixtal runs along the boundary with Nuevo Progreso. From Guatemala City the easier way in is along the coast, taking the CA-9 to Escuintla and the CA-2 through Mazatenango and Retalhuleu to Coatepeque, then climbing the last stretch on the departmental road, 241 kilometres in all. The inland route through San Marcos city runs to 294 kilometres, and buses on that side are irregular because the road is poorly kept, so check which way a property actually connects before you judge its price.

The town takes its name from the Liberal Reform of 1871 and counts 1888 as its founding year. Before that it was a caserío of San Cristóbal Cucho. Close to 24,000 people live in the municipality today, most of them Mam, and you will hear Mam and Spanish side by side in the market. The town has a municipal market, a health centre, an IGSS office, a police substation and a volunteer fire company, but no hospital, which means hospital care is a trip down to Coatepeque. The year turns here with the town fair, which runs from 28 December to 2 January and peaks on New Year’s Day with the Quema del Torito.

Coffee pays for almost everything. Rubber comes second, with banana, orange, plantain, maize and beans grown alongside, and a few farms keep cattle. The big estates still frame the map: Dos Marías, with its own cooperative, La Paz, Nueva América, La Igualdad, Concepción Candelaria, La Arabia and Canopá, among others. The Canopá river once drove the turbines that lit the town, and the fincas still draw on it, above all at harvest time, when the picking brings the year’s busiest stretch of paid work.

The ground drops from pine and cypress country in the north to warmer land south of the town, where cedar, rubber and fruit trees take over; the central park stands at 1,140 metres. On this Pacific-facing slope the rainy season is long and heavy, which suits coffee and is hard on dirt roads and timber, so see a property in the wet months if you can. A good share of the communities began as pieces of fincas. Natividad de María was cut from Dos Marías in 1956 for 104 families of long-serving workers, Recuerdo Asturias came out of Concepción Candelaria in the years after the 1952 land reform, and Santa Teresa was lotified from finca La Paz. Los Ochoa formed when a family farm was divided among sixteen heirs, which goes a long way to explaining why so much land here is held in small, inherited parcels.

Houses in La Reforma:

Homes here are family houses, around the park and the market in the town and along the roads out to aldeas and caseríos such as Santa Clara, San Rafael Bocol, San Isidro and Villa Hermosa. Outside the town, wood has long been the usual building material, with concrete block now common alongside it. In a wet climate on a slope that changes what you inspect: look for rot and termites in the timber, see how the roof sheds water and where the runoff goes. Ask how the house gets its water and power, because the arrangement differs from one community to the next and many rely on local springs. When you compare houses for sale in La Reforma, find out whether the lot was formally split from a larger farm, since a lot of the housing stands on ground that once belonged to one.

Land and Lots in La Reforma:

Land is sold by the cuerda, either as farmland or as a house lot on the edge of a caserío. South of the town most parcels are coffee, banana or fruit ground, and they often come already planted, so the price covers the trees as well as the soil. Look at the age and condition of the coffee, and at whether a stream or spring crosses the parcel; the municipality has some twenty springs, and water is what makes a plot workable. Before you commit to land for sale in La Reforma, walk the boundaries with the seller and a neighbour, because many parcels were cut from fincas decades ago and have passed through several heirs since.

FAQ:

• How do I get to La Reforma from Guatemala City?

  Most people take the coast: the CA-9 to Escuintla, the CA-2 to Coatepeque, then the climb up to La Reforma, 241 kilometres in total. Going through San Marcos city is 294 kilometres on a road in worse condition, and buses that way are irregular.

• Is La Reforma closer to Coatepeque or to San Marcos?

  Coatepeque, by a clear margin. It is 24 kilometres away against 43 to the departmental capital, the regular bus service runs only toward Coatepeque, and most of the town’s buying and selling happens there.

• What should I check on a parcel that was once part of a finca?

  Make sure the parcel was legally split from the finca and registered in the seller’s own name, not still sitting under the farm’s original title or held jointly by a family of heirs. Many lots here came from worker parcelamientos paid off in instalments or from farms divided through inheritance, and those papers are not always finished. A notary can search the record at the Segundo Registro de la Propiedad in Quetzaltenango, which covers San Marcos, before you sign anything.

• What grows on farmland in La Reforma?

  Coffee first, then rubber. Banana, orange, plantain, maize and beans are grown across the municipality, and some farms raise cattle on a smaller scale.

• Is there a hospital in La Reforma?

  No. The town has a health centre run by the health ministry and an IGSS office, and for hospital care residents go to Coatepeque.