Volcán

About Volcán:

Volcán covers 187 square kilometres at the northwest end of Buenos Aires canton, on the stretch of country between Buenos Aires town and San Isidro de El General. The Interamericana Sur, Route 2, crosses the district, and buses between San Isidro and Buenos Aires stop at the turn-off for Volcán village and at the entrance to Longo Mai. Route 610 is the second way in, linking Volcán back to Buenos Aires through Brunka, the district that was carved out of Volcán’s land in 2000. The Río Convento marks the border with Pérez Zeledón. Longo Mai itself sits up a two-kilometre gravel road from its stop on the Interamericana, 30 to 40 minutes from San Isidro.

Pineapple is the main source of work. Before PINDECO arrived the valley was cattle country; once the company began planting, families moved in to work the fields, build a small house and settle. Much of the middle and lower land along the rivers now belongs to the plantations, with sugar cane and pasture further down. In the village, the EBAIS clinic stands on Calle Sabanilla, the Liceo Yolanda Oreamuno is the academic secondary school, the Escuela Líder Volcán takes primary pupils, and a CEN-CINAI centre looks after the youngest children. For the hospital, banks and big supermarkets, people drive to San Isidro de El General, and municipal business is done in Buenos Aires.

Three rivers, the Volcán, the Ángel and the Cañas, form the sub-basin that drains the district into the Río Grande de Térraba, and the top of that basin lies inside La Amistad International Park. Water shapes daily life here. The community water board, the ASADA, was set up in 1986 instead of the wells PINDECO had offered to drill, and it draws on five springs, adding a temporary intake on the Río Ángel in the dry season. Hard storms muddy the springs, so the board shuts the pipes for a few hours until the water runs clean. Where the riverbanks have been cleared, the Volcán overflows in the rainy season and runs low in summer, and a basin commission sworn in by the municipal council in 2021 was set up to manage the basin’s water and bring back the riverside forest. In the 2010s, private hydro dams were planned for the Convento and Sonador rivers; local opposition, led from Longo Mai, saw them shelved.

Volcán had 6,471 residents in 2000 and 3,815 at the 2011 census, the drop being the share that went to Brunka. Many households are plantation families in the village and along the highway. Longo Mai is a community apart: the European Longo Mai cooperative movement bought Finca Sonador in 1979, with United Nations support, as a refuge for Nicaraguans fleeing the Somoza regime, and Salvadoran families followed from 1982. Today around 700 people live there on 850 hectares, 450 of them rainforest kept as the Longo Mai wildlife refuge, and the village hosts students and visitors in family homes. Buyers from outside the district mostly come for land: forest, river frontage or a flat finca within reach of San Isidro.

Houses in Volcán:

Houses in Volcán are family homes rather than holiday villas. In and around the village they stand on public roads within walking distance of the school, the Catholic church, the supermarket and the liceo, and there is at least one urbanización, with the CEN-CINAI facing its multi-use playground. In Longo Mai, family houses have three or four bedrooms, and many have an extra room built for guests. When you look at houses for sale in Volcán, ask whether the property is on the ASADA network and whether the rubbish truck reaches the street, because collection does not cover every barrio and some households still burn or bury their waste.

Land and Lots in Volcán:

Forest land comes up on its own as well as inside farms. Offers include two or three hectares of native forest with frontage on a public road, marketed for a nature retreat, a small lodge or a conservation project, with water and power available at the road. Before you budget for building, get the ASADA’s water availability letter and the electricity company’s equivalent in writing. Some adverts for land in Volcán are in fact in Santa Marta, which has been part of Brunka since 2000, so check the district on the plano catastrado before you compare prices.

Fincas in Volcán:

Farms come in every size. One finca of 8.7 hectares, flat almost throughout, comes with a clean river along its edge, a spring of its own that runs all year, ASADA availability, pasture, patches of forest and paved access a few minutes from the nearest shops. Fincas of 45 hectares come up as well. At the top end, a forest property of more than 1,900 hectares in Sabanilla, seven kilometres north of Volcán’s football ground, has been on offer under a payment-for-environmental-services contract, with the ASADA pipelines that supply Volcán, El Peje and Los Ángeles running through it. Anyone weighing fincas for sale in Volcán should expect easements and forest contracts of that kind on the bigger properties.

FAQ:

• What should I check on a riverside finca in Volcán before I buy?

  Start with the river itself. Walk the bank in the rainy season, or ask the neighbours how far the Volcán came up last winter, because cleared margins flood. Then pull the plano catastrado and the folio real from the Registro Nacional (Registro Inmobiliario) and look for easements, such as ASADA pipelines, and for any payment-for-environmental-services contract with FONAFIFO, which keeps the forest under contract standing until it expires. The Forestry Law also bars building or clearing in a strip along every river and around permanent springs, so measure what is left before you plan a house.

• Can I count on the river to irrigate my land?

  Not without your own concession. Using river water needs a permit from the Dirección de Aguas, and most of the flow already granted on the Volcán river goes to pineapple irrigation, with further company intakes on the Ángel and the Cañas. A spring on the property, or an ASADA connection, is the safer source for a house.

• What is Longo Mai, and can I buy land there?

  Longo Mai is a farming community founded in 1979 by the European Longo Mai cooperative on Finca Sonador, first for Nicaraguan refugees and then for Salvadoran and Costa Rican families. About 700 people live there, with a school, two shops and two churches, and half the land is protected forest. The village grew out of one cooperative farm, so confirm that any parcel you are offered has its own folio real and that the seller is its registered owner.

• Does living next to the pineapple fields make a difference?

  It can. Plantations cover a large part of the district’s lower and middle valley, and in the dry season stubble burning has been reported in the canton. If a finca borders the fields, visit it between January and April as well as in the green months, and ask how the neighbouring blocks are worked.

• Where are the nearest services?

  Volcán village has the EBAIS, the Liceo Yolanda Oreamuno, primary schools and small supermarkets. Buenos Aires town has the municipality. The nearest hospital, the banks and the larger stores are in San Isidro de El General, half an hour or more up the Interamericana.