Thursday 5 July 2012

The Saviour of Costa Rica....and British at that!

Costa Rica is a small country abounding in rivers...which makes travel by road a problem as these rivers need crossing, and river crossings need to have an eye kept on their maintenance.

Which is exactly what the Transport Ministry (MOPT) and the Roads Authority (CONAVI) have not been doing for several years.

As our own experiences have shown.

While we were still holidaying here we decided to take a trip to the National Agricultural School on the other side of the Central Valley and decided to go cross country to avoid retracing our steps for some forty kilometres by going into the suburbs of the capital and out again.

This meant crossing the Virilla River, carrying the pollution of the Central Valley towns down to the Pacific Ocean.....but the map showed a way across so off we went.

Costa Rica is not well endowed with direction signs, and certainly none existed on the dirt tracks which had succeeded to the asphalted roads once we left the better populated areas.

We passed a large pig farm - and were surprised that we knew and were known to the man with the tractor working there.
He gave directions.

At a junction by a mango plantation we asked again.
Down there....pointing somewhere equidistant between the two tracks available.

Down there, we came across men cutting cane.
Yes, down there.

So down there we went, cautiously as the track had turned into a quagmire after the rains.
We turned a corner, and gasped.

There was the Virilla river.
A long way down.
Crossed by a suspension bridge.
A suspension bridge which had seen better days.
To the point that there were more gaps than planks.

Turning was impossible...it was the bridge or bust - and luckily it didn't.

We arrived safely at the Agricultural School, to find it was closed to visitors, but the man selling cheese produced there took pity on us and made a 'phone call, which resulted in us having the undivided attention of the deputy director himself, giving us a guided tour of everything from artificial insemination of Bramah cattle to a crocodile farm via water buffalo to produce proper mozarella.
Scots blood might have helped...the place had been founded by Scottish veterinary surgeons before being handed over to the state.

It was a wonderful tour guided by a real expert and we had almost forgotten about the terrors of the bridge when we saw a news item on the television.


A similar bridge further downstream over the Tarcoles River had collapsed, taking a bus and its passengers into the fast flowing waters.

The living escaped onto the roof of the bus to be rescued by Red Cross workers and volunteers.


That there were only five deaths among the thirty eight passengers was due to the abnormally low level of the river.
This  video shows what crossing that bridge was like in the rainy season that year.

The bridge collapse meant that communities were cut off.....so a replacement was needed, urgently. And, as always, the answer was a bailey bridge.
                                                                        
These bridges, the product of British wartime ingenuity, are the mainstay of road transport in Costa Rica with at least eighty in service to keep things moving both on the backroads and on the major highway between San Jose and the international airport where lack of maintenance led to a huge sinkhole forming recently, closing half the road and reducing most of the Central Valley to gridlock until two Bailey bridges were set up while repairs (still unfinished) took place.
The bridge was designed for warfare. It was made of light prefabricated parts which could be  transported and assembled without the need for heavy lifting gear and being modular could be made as long and strong as was required by doubling up on the component parts.
It took the British army and its tanks across Africa and through Europe to final victory, the brainchild of Donald Bailey, a civil servant with a passion for bridges. An amateur.
And now, in a fine example of swords turned into ploughshares, it is keeping Costa Rica on the move, from the farmer taking his crop to market to the lorries hauling goods between Mexico and Panama on the Interamericana Highway. 
But without the genius of Donald Bailey Costa Rica would be at a standstill.

29 comments:

  1. Ah...the beloved Bailey Bridge,inspiration of my childhood Meccano constructions!(Well, it was the only practical way to get from one end of the sofa to the other!)
    Growing up in an area of hydro dams I was familiar with these marvellous bridges.

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    1. I only had father's tales....but now am on familiar terms with them!

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  2. Knowing the bridge must be crossed, would you take that route again. Or for that trip, if you knew before. And, in the video, is that foot traffic accumulating at the other side waiting for the vehicle to clear the bridge?

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    1. No, I would not.
      It's not the only bridge like that - returning from Nicaragua with BIL we took a wrong exit from the laughingly called Caldera motorway and ended up on another one!
      Yes, the people are waiting until there is nothing on the bridge....

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  4. I will never complain about potholes in the road again.

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    1. http://www.crhoy.com/tome-rutas-alternas-paso-regulado-en-general-canas/
      If you follow the link you will see the mother of all potholes....so great is the chaos that the poor kids in the capital have had their school holidays postponed to ease the chaos!

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  5. You have to be prepared for an adventure whenever you set foot outside your door basically.

    The most I have to be concerned about is whether my cat will suddenly make a dash for it and get under my feet. :)

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    1. Toss up which is more dangerous....the daily feline or the once and never again bridge...

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  6. Great contraptions, my father explained how they worked once when we encountered one--though can't remember where it was.

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  7. Some dear friends of ours told us a story about a bridge in Costa Rica. I wish I could remember the details -- but there was something about the car having to make a 'leap of faith' or 'running jump' from the land to the bridge and then having to land just right in order to be able to drive across. On this same trip they got stopped by bandits, who were quite friendly in an oddly Costa Rican kind of way...

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    1. Must have been in the pre drug trade days as the modern bandits are distinctly unfriendly, it appears.

      We were on our first trip to Costa Rica when our bus tried to 'jump' a crevasse which had opened up in the road...

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  8. I think you are incredibly brave to have crossed that bridge. You wouldnt catch me doing that!

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  9. This is living life in another world - hanging on to it at times too. Slightly concerned that temporary, wartime structures are what are providing access to much of the country though full of admiration at their invention and durability!
    Great post - most interesting, though I don't like thinking of the poor folk in the submerged part of the bus.

    Axxx

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    1. While living in rural Costa Rica generally compares very favourably with living in rural France - more and better services - the roads are a perpetual problem.
      Just today, coming back from a hospital appointment, half the raod had disappeared at one stretch...but the crews were already there...so they can do it - it{s the usual story of apathy at national planning level.

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  10. The Bailey bridge across our own river here at Valley's End allowed traffic from one side to the other (the main thoroughfare across the packhorse bridge being closed for repairs) recently.
    I have to say, I'm glad it's gone again. The old-fashioned footbridge is a lot prettier.

    Your life in Costa Rica seems to be quite an adventure, I'm not sure I'd have the courage. Rural England is adventurous enough for me.

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    1. When I moved to rural France people used to say...
      'Aren't you brave!'

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  11. I'm with Ayak. I'd stay at home for ever if I had to cross a bridge like that. I'm such a wimp where heights and wobbly things are concerned. You and Mr Fly must be made of much stronger stuff....

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  12. I guess it is good to face challenges :D

    My great aunt used to have to get herself over river sometimes when she travelled around India for her job. !

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    1. Challenges are one thing...when people have been waiting fourteen years for a bridge so that they can get their goods to market and there are deaths annually as people are borne away trying to cross the river then the government's lack of concern is scandalous.

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  13. And I thought the roads were bad in Ireland. We are blessed by comparison. It is shocking to read that people are dying and the government does nothing.

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    1. Since the 70s...when there was concern for people...the elite have considered the rest of the people as not worth bothering about.
      This is beginning to change with the spread of internet and the government's response has been to try to muzzle the press and whistleblowers.
      Luckily there is a constitutional court which won't stand for it...we're about to live in interesting times.

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  14. Yikes! We're having major problems with the bridges and inner city structure in Montreal. Huge pieces of road collapsing - but now these problems seem small - so far no lives lost. That's a terrible situation in Costa Rica. Keep safe!

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    1. Costa Rica to the rescue...when the transpotrt department find the bridges they have allegedly vought we'll send you some!

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  15. January 1977 saw the last Baily bridge to be built in the Sydney NSW AUS Suburbs as a result of the 'Granville train disaster' when an early morning commuter train swayed into pylon of the former bridge.

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  16. I reckon Costa Rica must be a retirement home for Bailey bridges...

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