The Caracas–La Guaira highway is a highway that connects Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, to its principal port city of La Guaira, capital of the Vargas state. It was designed as an alternative to the old highway linking Caracas with La Guaira, the Carretera Vieja, a circuitous route with dangerous curves and steep drops. The end-to-end journey on the old highway had taken one hour while the new highway allowed the same trip to be made in 20 minutes. It is the primary route between Caracas and the coast, and it links Caracas with its main international airport, Simón Bolívar International Airport. It was designed and built during the government of Colonel Marcos Pérez Jiménez and the military junta government that preceded it. Construction began in January 1950, and lasted until late 1953, with a huge cost of 3,500,000 dollars per km at the time, and 60,000,000 dollars on the present. At the time of its inauguration, the project was considered an engineering masterpiece, and one of the most visible examples of Venezuelan politics to reverse its oil wealth to the land. Characteristics By the time construction was completed, the highway was considered by many aspects such as the most important engineering complex done in America after the Panama Canal, through a range of unmatched engineering prowess to that time, a spectacular highway which runs through the picturesque mountains of the north. The construction of the highway began in January 1950 after six years of careful study by the Ministry of Public Works in Venezuela during the military regime by colonel Marcos Pérez Jiménez (1952-1958). The highway serves as a vital artery linking Caracas with important Maiquetia Airport, whose daily turnover is about 200 domestic and international flights, and the thriving port of La Guaira, where it enters about 50% of all of the country's imports. Also, the highway will impart momentum to the development of coastal property. With only 36 turns, it reduced the travel time by about 15 minutes. The curves have a minimum radius of , compared with 15 for the current road. The maximum degree of the new road is only 6%, and 3.5% in the tunnels, compared with 12% on the old road. Two gigantic tunnels, one of them over long, together with the three pre-compressed concrete bridges of the world's largest, trace the path of this huge four-lane highway linking the capital with the