There are many stories about the old Eustaquio Palacios Bridge, the metallic giant of German architecture that hangs over the Cauca River at the Guayabal Pass. It was inaugurated in 1926, in the middle of a large departmental infrastructure project that also included the Mariano Ospina Pérez Bridge, between the municipalities of La Unión and La Victoria, and collapsed in the early 1970s… But the story you probably don't know is how Roldanillo got the current bridge.
After the definitive collapse of the floor of the metal bridge, the only way to cross between Roldanillo and Zarzal was by crossing the river; canoes and boats gathered on the shore to carry from people to small vehicles. The municipal administration did not have the resources to undertake a project of this magnitude, and at the departmental level, not much attention was paid to the matter.
In 1972, after 11 years of absence, the painter Omar Rayo returned to visit his land. When he arrived, the first news he came across was that of the accident on the bridge. He had to cross the river in a canoe to be able to embrace his family. He found out the details, collected newspaper clippings and photographs as evidence, and knowing that the then president, Misael Pastrana Borrero, was waiting for him in Bogotá with an award, a month after arriving in Roldanillo he went ot the capital.
The master had just received the prize of the Bienal de São Paulo, and was about to be awarded by the high leader with the Order of San Carlos, but he proposed a business... - "Mr. President, a large conservative zone has been disconnected from the country,'' he told him, and took out the material he had been collecting a few days before. "I exchange that decoration for a bridge". Pastrana smiled and called his minister of public works to start working on the project.
A few months later, the Guayabal bridge was inaugurated, which today connects our municipality with the south of the department; Rayo was effectively left without the Order of San Carlos, but a few decades later, in 1994, the recognition widened, as he was exalted with the category of Grand Officer of the Order of Boyacá, maximum national condecoration for the service to the homeland.
Photo of the construction of the new Roldanillo bridge, by Gustavo Gómez. Source: Photographic Archive and Film Heritage of Valle del Cauca.
It's better in the App