Cajón

About Cajón:

Cajón runs north to south along the eastern side of the General valley, from the Interamericana Sur at Mercedes and El Pilar up into the foothills of the Cordillera de Talamanca. The seat, also called Cajón and known around its church as El Carmen, sits at 687 metres, almost level with San Isidro. Getting there takes about 35 minutes: south on Route 2, then up national Route 326, while Route 322 and a web of back roads tie the coffee villages together. The district covers 118.6 km² and was created on 3 March 1970 by Executive Decree 14, segregated from San Pedro.

Coffee holds the district together. Rows of bushes cover the slopes from the highway to the edge of the forest, and from October to January the harvest sets the pace of every village, with pickers out at dawn and full sacks by the road in the afternoon. The centre has the Iglesia El Carmen and its park, the Escuela El Carmen, a CEN-CINAI, small shops and sodas. For the hospital, the banks and the big supermarkets you drive to San Isidro. Feast days fill the calendar, from Pueblo Nuevo’s cabalgata every July to the fiestas patronales of San Pedrito on the last weekend of November.

The north of the district is a different landscape. Montecarlo, San Francisco, Santa Marta, San Ignacio and Santa María belong to the Alexander Skutch Biological Corridor, set up in 1991 to keep forest connected between Chirripó National Park and the private reserves of Las Nubes and Los Cusingos. Quizarrá, which Cajón shares with El General, hosts the corridor’s yearly Expo CoBAS, and the Los Cusingos bird refuge, where Skutch lived and wrote for six decades, lies just over the line. Farms up here reach 1,200 metres in San Ignacio, and forest patches sit between the coffee. In Santa Teresa, beside the village school, Hacienda AltaGracia runs 50 casitas, its own coffee farm, stables and an airstrip, and hires from the villages around it.

About 11,000 people live in Cajón, up from 8,542 in 2011, spread over nineteen communities: El Quemado and Navajuelar beside the centre, Mercedes, El Pilar and Las Brisas along the highway, Pueblo Nuevo, Paraíso and San Pedrito in the middle hills, Gloria, Nubes and Salitrales to the north, and parts of Cedral and Quizarrá. Much of that growth comes from people who work in San Isidro and want a house with land within easy reach of it. A second group of buyers, many of them from abroad, heads for the corridor villages in search of a hectare or more with forest, a spring and a view of Talamanca. Water links both, and the ASADA de Cajón, which began as a volunteer committee in 1994, now runs the aqueduct from its office just south of the El Carmen church.

Houses in Cajón:

Most houses here are concrete family homes on lots of 800 m² or more, on the stretch between the centre and the highway, 20 to 35 minutes from San Isidro. Out in San Pedrito or Santa Teresa a house usually comes with a few thousand square metres, fruit trees and sometimes a river at the bottom of the property. Quizarrá and the corridor villages have newer houses built around the view, a few of them on several acres with a second home for family or guests. For homes for sale near San Isidro de El General with a rural address and piped water, Cajón is one of the closer options. Finishes and paperwork vary widely, so judge each house on its own.

Land and Lots in Cajón:

Land is the biggest part of the market. Near the centre, subdivided lots of around 400 m² are the cheapest way into the district, while in Arco Iris you will find lots of about 2,700 m² with a natural spring on the property. Las Mercedes and Quizarrá offer parcels of a hectare, some with private forest and some almost flat, which is scarce on these slopes. Anyone comparing lots for sale in Cajón should weigh the road, the slope and the water before the price per square metre. A small lot by the asphalt and a hectare at the end of a gravel track are different purchases, even when the totals look alike.

Farms in Cajón:

Fincas run from a few hectares to a dozen or more, and most combine coffee, pasture, fruit trees and patches of forest. In Santa María you will find farms of five or six hectares with two houses and water all year, and in San Ignacio larger holdings rise to around 1,200 metres. Some owners will sell a big farm whole or split off part of it. A permanent stream or spring is the feature that moves value most, followed by how much of the land is open and usable. If the coffee is in production, ask who picks it and who buys it, because the harvest needs hands from October on.

Rentals in Cajón:

Renting in Cajón is a local affair. Long-term lets are mostly three-bedroom family houses with a yard, passed along by word of mouth and in community groups, and a few furnished houses near the centre take short stays. Tenants tend to be families tied to the district or to jobs in San Isidro. If you plan to rent before you buy, a few months here is a good way to learn which villages hold up in the rain.

FAQ:

• How far is Cajón from San Isidro de El General?

  The centre is about 23 km away, roughly 35 minutes by car via Route 2 and Route 326. Mercedes and El Pilar sit right on the Interamericana and are quicker. Santa Teresa is around 22 km and 40 minutes, and the climb to the corridor villages takes longer once the rain sets in.

• Is a farm in Quizarrá or Cedral part of Cajón?

  Maybe. Quizarrá is split between Cajón and El General, and Cedral between Cajón and San Pedro, so the village name alone does not tell you the district. The cadastral plan does. Check that the plan, the property recorded in the Registro Nacional and the fences on the ground describe the same parcel, look for liens and mortgages, and get a land use certificate from the municipality in San Isidro before you commit.

• Will my lot have water from the ASADA?

  The 2020 aqueduct serves sixteen communities, among them El Carmen, Mercedes Arriba and Abajo, Pueblo Nuevo, San Pedrito, Santa María, Santa Teresa and Navajuelar. Even inside that area, ask the ASADA for a water availability letter before you buy, because you will need it to build. If the parcel relies on its own spring, find out whether its use is authorised.

• Can I buy land inside the Alexander Skutch Biological Corridor?

  Yes. A biological corridor is not a national park, and the land in it is private and sold in the ordinary way. What the law does not allow is clearing forest to make room for a house or pasture, so find out how much of the parcel is already open ground before you plan anything on it.

• Can I buy a coffee farm in Cajón and keep it producing?

  Yes, many fincas are sold with coffee in the ground. Ask how much is planted, how old it is and where the last harvest was sold. Then plan for October to January, when picking needs people on the slopes every day.