The Ecuadorian Andes are a fiendish proposition for any transport planner: a three-mile high spine of mountains that runs down the centre of the country, unfolding into highplateaus, fissuring into canyons and sheltering mist-shrouded old towns.
Let inventiveness again lead the country to new plateaus of high growth and to new solutions for the problem of bringing everyone into the Internet age.
In 1993, the French department of public works staged an open competition to build a high bypass bridge between plateaus at the top of the gorge, based on an initial concept by its engineer, Michel Virlogeux, who proposed a multispan, cable-stayed bridge with a phalanx of seven masts supporting cable fans.