Lavender-blue peaks of the western Sierra Madre jut as far as the eye can see, the only hints of civilization: a tendril of smoke from burning corn residue, a squiggle of dirt road.

Then out of nowhere, a flat ribbon of concrete runs like a roller-coaster over giant pylons, burrowing in and out of the mountainside until it seems to leap mid-air over a 400-metre river gorge via the world’s highest cable-stayed bridge, called the Baluarte.

The Durango-Mazatlan Highway is one of Mexico’s greatest engineering feats, 115 bridges and 61 tunnels designed to bring people, cargo and legitimate commerce safely through a mountain range known until now for marijuana, opium poppies and an accident-prone road called the Devil’s Backbone.

Even those protesting the project say the 230-km highway, expected to be completed in August, will change northern Mexico dramatically for the good. It will link port cities on the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific by a mere 12-hour drive, and Mazatlan with San Antonio, Texas, in about the same time. The highway will eventually move five million vehicles a year, more than four times the number on the old road, plus more produce and goods from Asia to the Mexican interior and southern U.S. Sinaloa state tourism officials predict an “explosion” for the resort city of Mazatlan, hard hit by drug violence in recent years, as the new road gives 40 million Mexicans in interior states an easy drive to the beach.

via Highway will leapfrog Mexico’s drug lands.