The Super Highway to Oaxaca: The Dream Goes On
The super highway (autopista) connecting Puerto Escondido, via Ventanilla, and Oaxaca, via Barranca Larga, Ejutla, will not be completed by early 2022, no matter what President López Obrador says. It probably won’t be finished in 2023 either. Building a highway through the mountains of Oaxaca is very labor intensive and demands a high degree of precision engineering. Each layer of cement has to be tested and retested before it can be paved over, mountain slopes have to be adjusted and readjusted to avoid rock slides, streams have to be channeled, and then there are the bridges and tunnels.. The project began over 10 years ago, but progress has been sporadic. (See Vivapuerto.com 29 for the history.)
The travel time from Puerto Escondido to Oaxaca will be only 2 ½ hours.
The last 2 km’s in Colotepec
Banobras, the national development bank, is now in charge of the project. Mota-Engil, a Portuguese firm, has the contract from the Colotepec side of the Santa Martha tunnel to the San Sebastian tunnel.
The other side of the Sta. Martha tunnel
