Hojancha

About Hojancha:

Hojancha is the eleventh canton of Guanacaste, split from Nicoya on 2 November 1971, only five years after Nicoya had made it one of its districts. It covers 261 square kilometres and is 29 kilometres across at its widest, from the Río Momollejo crossing on the Matambú–Nicoya road to Punta El Roble on the Pacific. Five districts share that ground: Hojancha, the canton seat; Monte Romo on the ridges to the south; Huacas on the slopes facing the Gulf of Nicoya; Puerto Carrillo on the coast; and Matambú, the newest, created in 2017. National Route 158 carries most of the traffic, climbing from the Nicoya side to the town and dropping on to Puerto Carrillo, where the coast road heads north to Sámara. Liberia and its international airport are about 100 kilometres north of town.

The canton takes its name from a tree with unusually broad leaves, the hoja ancha. Settlers from Matambú and from San Ramón, Atenas and Palmares in the west of the Central Valley arrived in 1910, cleared the forest and put cattle on it. By 1976 pasture had swallowed almost everything; then beef prices collapsed, the rivers ran low in the dry months, and Hojancha lost more than half its people. What came next is why the canton looks the way it does: residents pooled money to buy worn-out pasture and replant it, farmers turned to shade-grown coffee, oranges and teak, and the forest was allowed back along the streams. Cattle still matter, with some 10,000 hectares of pasture raising mostly beef, but they now share the hills with orchards, plantations and protected forest.

The ground rises from the coast to ridges close to 1,000 metres, and the higher you go the wetter and cooler it gets, which is why coffee grows around Monte Romo and Pilangosta and not down by the sea. Huacas sits lower on the eastern side, looking out over the gulf to Isla Chira, while Puerto Carrillo holds the canton’s only stretch of beach. The dry season from December to April is hard everywhere, and an El Niño year can stretch it to eight months. That makes water the first question on any farm here: whether the springs hold through April, whether there is a well, and whether the community water association can supply a new house.

Just over 8,000 people live in the canton, nearly half of them in the central district. Many descend from the first settler families, and Hojancha is one of the five cantons that make up the Nicoya Peninsula’s Blue Zone, known for how long its people live. In and around town are the municipal offices, the coffee cooperative and the agricultural technical high school opened in 1972; for the hospital, people drive to Nicoya. Buyers from outside split two ways: people who want a hill farm or a house with cooler air and a view, and people who want a home within reach of Playa Carrillo and Sámara. Matambú, on the Nicoya side, is home to the Chorotega community and the country’s only Chorotega indigenous territory.

Houses in Hojancha:

In Hojancha town the stock is concrete family houses on short barrio streets within walking distance of the church, the school and the shops. Out in the villages a house nearly always comes with land, from a plain farmhouse with a porch to newer homes set on a ridge for the view. Above Playa Carrillo the picture changes, with hillside villas with pools and ocean views alongside smaller village houses close to the beach. Homes on the coast and homes in the hills sell to different buyers at very different prices, so when you browse houses for sale in Hojancha, compare like with like.

Land and Lots in Hojancha:

Lots here come in three kinds. Near the town there are house lots with water, power and a street already in place. On the high ground some large fincas are being split into lots of around half a hectare for people who want one house and a garden, and toward the coast there are ocean-view parcels and riverside lots around Santa Marta, a short drive from Playa Carrillo. When you look at land for sale in Hojancha, make sure the lot has its own registered cadastral plan and its own legal access to a public road, not a track across the seller’s farm.

Farms in Hojancha:

Most of what changes hands in Hojancha is farmland. On the Huacas side there are cattle ranches with improved pasture, corrals and long views over the gulf, some of them more than 200 hectares. In Monte Romo and around Pilangosta, smaller fincas come with coffee and oranges already producing, and across the canton many farms include blocks of teak. Forest on a farm is not dead weight: it protects the springs, and land kept under forest can earn the owner state payments for environmental services. Before you weigh up fincas for sale in Hojancha, visit in April, at the end of the dry season, when you can see which springs and creeks are still running.

Rentals in Hojancha:

Long-term rentals are mostly whole houses in and around Hojancha town, let by the month. At Puerto Carrillo the market is holiday homes and villas let by the week or the night, busiest in the dry season and over Easter and Christmas. Away from the town and the coast there is little to rent beyond the odd cabin on a farm. If you are thinking of buying in the hills, a few months renting in town is the cheapest way to learn what the dry season does to the water and the rains do to the roads.

FAQ:

• Can I buy land in Matambú?

  Not through an ordinary sale. Matambú district lies wholly inside the Matambú Indigenous Territory, the Chorotega territory that also reaches into Nicoya canton, and under Indigenous Law 6172 of 1977 its land is inalienable and reserved for the indigenous community: non-indigenous people cannot buy, rent or lease it, and any such deal is void. If you want to be near Matambú, look in Hojancha district or on the Nicoya side, outside the territory boundary.

• What should I check before buying a hill finca in Hojancha?

  Start with the trees. Much of the canton’s forest is regrowth on old pasture, and once land is forest the Forestry Law does not let you clear it for pasture or a house, so find out where the forest line runs before you plan anything. Then get a written water-availability letter from the local ASADA, or proof that the well or spring is registered and holds through the dry season. Last, the Registro Nacional (Registro Inmobiliario) will show who owns the land and what liens sit on it, and the Municipalidad de Hojancha will tell you what the land-use plan allows.

• How much earthquake risk is there?

  Real, and recent. The magnitude 7.6 earthquake of 5 September 2012 struck about 12 kilometres east-southeast of Hojancha town and shook the whole peninsula. Ask how any house you are considering was built, whether it had a permit and followed the seismic code, and whether it was repaired after 2012. On a slope, have an engineer look at the cut and fill under the foundations too.

• How do I get around the canton?

  Nicoya, with the regional hospital and the larger shops, is a short drive from Hojancha town. From town, Route 158 runs down to Puerto Carrillo, and from there the coast road continues north to Sámara. The roads out to farms in Monte Romo and Huacas are partly gravel, so try them after a few days of rain before you decide. The nearest international airport is Daniel Oduber at Liberia.

• Can I own a house on the beach at Playa Carrillo?

  Not on the sand. The first 200 metres inland from the ordinary high-tide line are the maritime-terrestrial zone: the first 50 are public and cannot be owned at all, and the next 150 can only be held under a municipal concession, which a foreigner can hold directly only after five years of residency. Titled property begins behind that strip, so check exactly where a lot sits on the plan before you fall for the view.