San Andrés

About San Andrés:

San Andrés is one of the five districts León Cortés Castro started with in 1962, when the canton split off from Tarrazú, and it still carries the number two. It covers 16 square kilometres north-west of San Pablo, on the side of the canton that faces Aserrí. The district is a scatter of hamlets rather than one town: Rastrojales, Higuerón, Llano Grande and Bajo Gamboa, plus parts of La Angostura and Ojo de Agua. Two national roads cross it. Route 336, an eleven-kilometre mountain road, comes in from Monterrey de Aserrí and runs on to San Antonio, where it meets Route 226, the canton’s main road to San Pablo, which also passes through the district.

Daily life runs on coffee and on a short list of local services. San Andrés has its own primary school, a liceo that teaches seventh to eleventh year, and an EBAIS clinic, and Higuerón has a second school and its own church, so children can finish secondary school without leaving the district. Families around Higuerón roast and sell coffee under the hamlet’s name, grown from 1,600 metres up and sold as Tarrazú coffee, and on Route 336 at La Angostura a family micro-mill has processed local cherry since 2006. Across the canton, avocado is the second crop after coffee. Electricity comes from Coopesantos, the Los Santos power cooperative, and drinking water from community-run ASADAs, among them the ASADA de San Andrés, which draws on its own mountain springs.

The hamlets sit around 1,500 metres, yet the district’s average altitude is 1,340, which tells you how much of its land falls away below the road into steep valley sides. That ground is part of the appeal and part of the cost. In 2017 the national roads council spent ₡180 million on an anchored, piled wall to rebuild 25 metres of road in San Andrés lost to a slide, which its engineers put down to poor-quality rock combined with water. Route 336 between Monterrey and San Andrés has also been closed by slides and fallen trees in heavy weather. Some small farms here are almost all forest, with just a clearing for the house.

San Andrés had 204 inhabitants in 1892 and 1,804 by 2000; the 2011 census counted fewer, 1,578, and the 2022 estimate puts it back near 1,800. Most land changes hands between local families, when a farm is divided among heirs or sold to the neighbour. Buyers from outside tend to want one of two things: a working coffee plot, or a forested finca with a cabin within reach of the capital. The bus matters for the second, because someone in the household can keep working in San José. Expect a quiet farming district where the bus line ends outside a pulpería, not a commercial strip.

Fincas in San Andrés:

Farms that come up in San Andrés are small, and some are almost pure forest. One combined 2.7 hectares, most of it wooded, with a wooden cabin of three bedrooms, two bathrooms and an office, power from Coopesantos and water from a spring that rises on the property. Coffee land around Higuerón and Rastrojales is the other kind of finca here, valued on what the plants yield at that altitude. Read the forest part of any deal slowly. Costa Rican law does not allow forest to be converted to pasture, crops or building, so the usable part of a wooded finca is the open ground it already has.

Land and Lots in San Andrés:

Building land here is rural land, so water, slope and access come before size. Water for a new house comes either from the local ASADA, which has to issue an availability letter before the municipality will look at a permit, or from a spring on the land, which needs a water concession. Springs that feed a public system have protection zones around them where building is restricted, so find out how close the nearest captured spring is. On a slope, ask for a soil study before you pour anything: the 2017 slide happened in the same kind of ground.

FAQ:

• Can I commute from San Andrés to San José by bus?

  Yes. A direct line runs between San Andrés and the south side of central San José, near Plaza González Víquez, by way of Monterrey, Aserrí and Desamparados, and the trip takes a little over an hour. On weekdays the first bus leaves San Andrés at four in the morning, and the last one up from the city leaves after six in the evening. Check the current timetable before you plan a daily routine around it.

• Can I clear part of a forested finca to build?

  Not the forest itself. Land under forest cannot be turned to another use, so ask the seller where the existing clearing is and whether the cabin was built on it with a permit. Check whether the spring has a registered water concession and whether any spring nearby feeds an ASADA, since those carry protection zones. Then confirm the owners, area and liens at the Registro Nacional, walk the boundaries with the plano catastrado, and get a land-use certificate from the Municipalidad de León Cortés.

• What happens to the roads in the rainy season?

  They are mountain roads cut into unstable banks. Slides and fallen trees have closed Route 336 between Monterrey and San Andrés, and a 2017 slide destroyed a stretch of road in the district until a piled retaining wall went in. Visit a property in October as well as in the dry months, and ask the neighbours which way they get out when the 336 is shut.

• How is San Andrés different from San Pablo?

  San Pablo is the canton seat, with the municipality, the parish church and most of the shops. San Andrés is smaller and rural, but it has its own liceo, primary schools and EBAIS, and its direct bus runs through Aserrí rather than through San Pablo. Pick San Pablo to have services on foot. Pick San Andrés for land and forest a bus ride from the capital.

• Which communities are part of San Andrés?

  The district takes in Rastrojales, Higuerón, Llano Grande and Bajo Gamboa, and shares La Angostura and Ojo de Agua with its neighbours. Higuerón has its own school and church, and Rastrojales has a church too. When you look at a property, ask which hamlet it belongs to; that often decides which ASADA supplies the water and how far you walk to the bus.