By Ivo Henfling

Getting us more water but messing up the road.

On the 27th of January, I told you about the work the city of Escazu is doing on the water supply. The "old road" or in Spanish "Calle Vieja", is the original and only road that runs from Sabana Park in San Jose all the way to Ciudad Colon, before the highway was built (that's why the name old road, very original). Well, in January 2011, the water company in Costa Rica, A y A, started digging up the road to introduce new waterpipes  so "Over 320 thousand people will benefit from a new system of Drinking Water".

Paving of the road

The private contractor hired by AyA to do the job, has been working dilligently on it for over a month now and neighbors have been complaining about the dust. In my last blog, I stated that " I also hope they will soon re-pave the road, before any accidents will happen, because we have now only one lane left for two ways of traffic.

Quite often, during these past weeks, we have had a water shortage for a couple of hours. I have a water reserve tank here, like many homes in Escazu, because back in the 80's and 90's we would have water shortages in summertime all the time. But it's worth suffering a bit, if in future things get better.

I have been trying to stay away from the area where they are working because traffic backs up quiet a bit there but since a client told me they were paving the road.

Of course I am very happy they don't wait 2 years before paving the road again, as would happen in past timers. But as I was driving along, I couldn't believe what I saw, so when past the work they are doing, I turned around  as I wanted to make sure I was seeing the right thing. Then I stopped, parked my car, walked back and took the following pictures. Maybe you can see what I think a typical mistake of a third world country that should not happen anymore nowadays, with so many locals with nice university degrees and institutions with so many supervisors. I put some arrows in to help you.

This bus stop is exactly 50 meters west of World Gym in Escazu.

This photo shows the gutter as it used to be before they paved over the part where they put the new pipes in.

The rain gutters disappeared!!!

Beautiful new pavement (only on the places where they put the pipes in) but no gutters nor ditches.

And messing it up

As much as I love this country and its people, I just cannot believe that no one involved in this project has had the thought about what will happen in the next rainy season. I can understand they don't have the funds to put new pavement in for the whole road instead of just the part where they put the pipes in.

But the disappearance of the rain ditches - gutters is totally unacceptable and I can wait to see the road look like this picture below even before we get to Christmas.

Shame on the contractor, the water company and the Municipality of Escazu.

Ivo Henfling, your expert realtor for Escazu and Santa Ana.