A New Bridge!

The major local story in Monteverde this month has been the replacement of the bridge over the Quebrada Cuecha. This bridge is the only way to get from Monteverde Center (and CASEM) up to the Friends School and the Cloud Forest Reserve.

The old bridge, built in 1983, was in danger of collapse after 42 years: check out this local news article about the history of the bridge, complete with historical photos!

Our house is just up the road from the bridge, so we got a close look at all the goings on! Check out these photos to see more about the construction process.

Here is what the bridge looked like before construction began.

The first step was to relocate the pedestrian bridge. They used a crane to lift it up and move it over to make space for the new vehicular bridge.

This new positioning required that they add an extension to the pedestrian bridge, which they just welded on! Here is Sophie with a before and after comparison.

Once the pedestrian bridge was installed, they closed the bridge to vehicle traffic. That caused a challenge for the Friends School, as most families live on the other side of the bridge. The staff worked hard to arrange a safe drop-off procedure, and the older students helped to walk the younger students up the hill. Sophie was excited because for the week that the bridge was closed, she was able to walk to school by herself, since there was no vehicle traffic!

The first step was to install the new bailey bridge. This is a prefabricated bridge and they put it together almost like a lego set, right on top of the old bridge!

It didn’t take long and within a few days, the new bridge was assembled!

The new bridge was about a meter higher than the original bridge, so the next step was to build ramps out of gravel. They used a backhoe to put the gravel in place and then packed it all down with a roller.

To keep the gravel ramps from immediately washing away in the rain, they filled sacks by hand with gravel and lined them up as temporary walls along the ramps.

They called for volunteers to help with this labor-intensive step, and Pat went down to help and made some new friends! He also earned a true tico apodo (nickname): Guayaba! The person who gave him the name said he was rosadito (pink) like the fruit!

Several weeks later, another team of workers came to replace the bags of gravel with more permanent cement walls. First, they built a structure out of rebar to fit the size of the wall they are going to make.

Then they poured some concrete down and used it to set the rebar into place.

The next step is to pour the concrete. To get it to hold the shape they want, they built a mold out of wood, using a bunch of bamboo rods and 2x4s to hold it in place.

Once the cement is poured and hardened, they remove the molds, leaving concrete retaining walls that are much more permanent than the sacks of gravel. They are also building some more massive walls like this under the bridge to help protect the banks of the creek from erosion.

Despite the challenges of working during the rainy month of October and having to transport all the materials up the mountain, the new bridge is now almost finished!