Like ants crawling across the horizon, Nuevo Mundo machines move along the emerging road, meter by meter, each attending to its own task. During the past month, these machines hauled thousands of truckloads of dirt excavated while dredging the Laguna Sulti Reservoir earlier this year, plus thousands of truckloads of gravel from the nearby Punata River.

Trucks haul dirt to road and runway surfaces, as other machines spread and compact it.

Now they’re alternating the next required tasks: leveling and compacting, then leveling and compacting again, six inches at a time, until they reach the desired height. When the resulting two-lane, three-mile, solid gravel road is finished at the end of September, it will connect the village of Toco to Chirusi, the location of the community’s new school.

Working on the Toco-Chirusi road.

Toco-Chirusi Road: Part of the Punata Regional Complex


Mano a Mano started the “Punata Regional Complex” in 2021– a comprehensive project in the Cochabamba Valley’s Punata region over the next three years that includes a 3rd expansion of the Laguna Sulti agricultural water reservoir (complete, and celebrated on June 11, 2022); a new public school (complete, and dedicated on March 25, 2022); a deep well for potable water (complete, and dedicated in March 2022); a three-mile road (this road from Toco to Chirusi); infrastructure needed for moving our aviation program from the Cochabamba airport; and preparation for a rural Center for Ecological Agriculture (CEA). There is a LOT more work to be done, but we are excited for the impact that the Punata Regional Complex can have for the future.


Learn More About Mano a Mano’s Punata Regional Complex