QCOSTARICA (PURA VIDA) The dream of crossing the Central Volcanic Mountain Range. The Braulio Carrillo Highway, the 64-kilometer highway to the city of Guápiles, of the Ruta 32, is an homage to the head of state who, at the end of the 1830s, visualized the route that was intended to be able to move towards the Caribbean crossing the forest and virgin jungle of Paso de la Palma and the Bajo de la Hondura.
The construction of 160 kilometers to link the Central Valley to the Caribbean coast by road took 20 years.
The road to Limón was considered a myth for 100 years and that was not easy to start.
If you arrived from Limón to Siquirres in a jeep, people believed that you had passed the car on a raft, that you had it in a parachute or something else, except that it arrived on its own wheels.
The feeling of incredulity was common, since the vision of the young Braulio Carrillo was never realized until decades later due to lack of economic interest, with the construction of the Ferrocarril al Atlántico in 1890.
During the administration of José Joaquín Trejos Fernández (1966-1970) a team of dreamers without international financing began to devise a “path to Limón”, which followed that of Carrillo’s ideas.
At that time, resources were scarce and although a large part of the project had been achieved, two modular bridges were missing to be able to cross the Pacuare and Chirripó rivers, and it was thanks to a national collection, led by La Nación, that the structures were brought from England in the 1970s.
Finally, the work was concluded to inaugurate it on March 28, 1987, by the Oscar Arias 1986-1990 administration, connecting San José with Limón, the main Caribbean port of Costa Rica, from where most of the merchandise enters and leaves the country.
The dream that Braulio Carrillo Colina devised in 1838 was accomplished.
Today it is one of the most scenic routes on the entire planet, it gives the possibility to cross an impressive Braulio Carrillo National Park, located Northside of Central Valley in the Central Volcanic Range, among the massifs of Póas and Irazú Volcanoes, a wonderful natural treasure includes Barva and Cacho Negro volcanoes, extending from Alto de la Palma at Northside of Moravia Canton, to the La Selva Protected Zone in Puerto Viejo de Sarapiqui.
