Topographically treacherous Abuluoha village is the final settlement in the country to connect to the road system, paving the way for farmers to steer their own destinies, Erik Nilsson reports.

Abuluoha became China's final village to connect to the country's paved road system last summer. (YIN GANG / FOR CHINA DAILY)

Traveling outside of Abuluoha often meant ripped pants. That's because the only way out of the village in Butuo county in Sichuan province's Liangshan Yi autonomous prefecture was a precarious mountain path of loose stones that would cascade down the slopes with every step.

And villagers, likewise, would also often tumble down the sometimes 90-degree slopes.

Villagers were skeptical when they heard about the plans to build the road. They didn’t believe it was possible

Jilie Ziri, village chief

The perilous trip took eight hours each way.

Villagers' surplus walnuts－otherwise a valuable crop－would rot since they couldn't transport them outside to sell. Farmers instead lived off subsistence agriculture, mostly eating coarse corn that would elsewhere be reserved for animal feed, since it could grow in the rocky slopes' generally infertile soil.

"If there was a drought, there was no corn. We went hungry," village chief Jilie Ziri recalls.

Abuluoha also didn't have running water in the early 2000s. So, a scarcity of precipitation caused problems that extended beyond arid cropland.

"Lamp oil was precious before we got electricity in 2013," Jilie Ziri says.

"That's because nobody who went to the nearest town carried more than they absolutely needed back to the village. And sometimes they couldn't even carry that."

The new road enables farmers in the remote and mountainous village in Sichuan province to cultivate oranges and mangoes to sell to the outside world. (ERIK NILSSON / CHINA DAILY)

That changed in June of 2020, when a 3.8-kilometer road was completed, and Abuluoha became China's final village to connect to the road system. It takes just 15 minutes to drive out of the village and about two hours of jackknifing up and down serrated peaks to reach the nearest town.

Abuluoha translates from the Yi language as "a place off the beaten path". But it no longer lives up to this moniker.

The ethnic Yi settlement of 65 households, comprising 253 people, also brought the final 29 households of 187 people out of extreme poverty last year.

The most challenging part of constructing the road was boring two tunnels, around 270 and 360 meters long, respectively, through the mountains.

Two workers died during the construction, when their digger－which had been flown in, dangling from a Mil Mi-26 helicopter－tumbled down a slope during a landslide. The vehicle can still be seen, partly buried, partly perched on a thorn-shaped crag.

Some villagers have bought cars and work as drivers since the road was paved. (ERIK NILSSON / CHINA DAILY)

The road also required the construction of a bridge spanning the river next to the village, which farmers previously crossed using ropeways, sometimes with goats and chickens tied to their bodies.

"Villagers were skeptical when they heard about the plans to build the road. They didn't believe it was possible, and they'd lived in such isolation for so long, they couldn't imagine living any other way," Jilie Ziri recalls.

Behind him, farmers shovel sheep manure around the trunks of orange and mango saplings－high-priced cash crops local farmers hope to use to cultivate new prosperity when they mature in two years, now that they can sell them outside.

"People were in disbelief when they saw the helicopter fly construction vehicles in," Jilie Ziri says.

The road clings to sheer mountainsides. (ERIK NILSSON / CHINA DAILY)

The 26-year-old chief is the village's first university graduate.

"Local people used to have children at a young age," he says. "Most kids didn't study until the school was built in the village in 2005."

Some of the first-graders were as old as 16 that year.

"As kids, when we'd climb the mountain, we just had to wipe our tears away and keep going," Jilie Ziri recalls.

He decided to return to the village to apply his higher education to developing his hometown.

The settlement hopes to develop tourism as an eco-village, using its status as China's last settlement to connect to the road system to conjure a unique appeal among travelers. It has built two small exhibition halls showing the process of how the road was built and the transformations it has brought, in buildings constructed according to traditional Yi architecture.

The most difficult part of building the road was boring two tunnels through mountains near the village. (ERIK NILSSON / CHINA DAILY)

The community is also preparing to open its first nongjiale, or rural guesthouse, for tourists.

The motorway has, indeed, proved to be an engine of prosperity.

Qiesha Niuzinan, 30, bought a van to drive people in and out of the settlement. Qiesha Zixia, 38, bought a motorized tricycle to transport goods to and from Abuluoha. Ada Dangge, 46, opened a small shop. And Qiesha Secong, 32, sold his horse and bought a motorcycle.

Residents agree the road truly has paved the way for Abuluoha's residents to drive development and steer their own destinies.

Contact the writer at erik_nilsson@chinadaily.com.cn