Imagine a spectacular mega construction that crosses the Andes as if it were a gruyere cheese. A giant wormhole, this is the La Línea Tunnel, inaugurated last Friday by the president of Colombia, Iván Duque, and that becomes, according to the president, "the most important infrastructure work ever done in the history of our country."

A spectacular construction of 8,650 meters framed in a road complex that communicates Cajamarca, in the department of Tolima, with Calarcá, in Quindío, and that will make the transporters that leave from the port of Buenaventura gain an average of 50 minutes in their trips. 

Colombians had to wait almost a century to see the project become a reality. Engineer Luciano Battle first proposed the idea of the tunnel in 1902, but back then, drilling the Central Mountain Range was such an enormous challenge that they had to wait until 2008 when the government of Alvaro Uribe began the work at an altitude of 2,400 meters above sea level. 

However, the corruption of the former Administration and various geological problems paralyzed the project on numerous occasions until the tunnel was finally completed a decade later. However, the rest of the Crossing of the Central Mountain Range complex — which consists of 25 tunnels and an investment of $783 million — will not be open to the public until the middle of next year.

In one of the entrances to the long Latin American tunnel, a monument has been installed to honor the more than 6,000 people who participated in its construction with their names.