The Death Road

Everyone guaranteed me that Bolivia was very dangerous, but after two months unscathed and time running out, I thought I had better try harder. The travelers on the backpacker circuit convinced me to sign up for the World's Most Dangerous Road (a.k.a. "The Death Road").  Apparently, somebody in the world keeps track of which public roads have the most deaths per kilometer, and the "highway" from La Paz to Coroico wins. Instead of closing it or putting up guardrails, they have made it into Bolivia's most expensive tourist atttraction. The road is 63 kilometers of shear cliffs and waterfalls (Yes, waterfalls: falling right on the road.), built in the 1930s by Paraguayan prisoners of war. It is mostly downhill, so not a hard ride, as long as you don't go over the edge.


The ride starts at a 4700m (15,400ft) pass, and one girl in our group fainted from the altitude while getting the safety briefing. She dominoed the whole row of bikes, so everyone was off their feet before we even started downhill.

Early in the ride, there is a stretch of 8 kilometers uphill. The bike company gives you the option to throw your bike on the van and ride to the next downhill stretch. I asked myself, "What would Homer Womens Nordic (my cross country ski team) do?", and started sucking 4000meters worth of oxygen as I pedaled. All the rest of the girls in our group jumped in the van, and a German boy looked at me doubtfully and said, "If you get tired, you can just get in the van." This snide comment changed the question to: "What would Megan Spurkland (fierce coach of HWN) do?" Thus forced to beat all the boys to the end of the uphill section, I'm pretty sure I permanently damaged my lungs.

A lot of the road was in fog when we rode it, so the dramatic drop offs were obscured, but it is obvious that there really isn't adequate space for large vehicles between the mountain and the cliff.  The ride is a lot of fun on a bike, but you really would have to be a muppet to stear a small, man powered vehicle over the edge.

Descending from high Altiplano with snow covered mountains into rainforest was spectacular (I'm making a judgment call that this was a 'rainforest' as it was a forest, and it was raining when I was there).

At the bottom, we visited La Senta Verde, an animal refuge that rescues illegally captured exotic animals from captivity and interns them at their refuge. I don't really see the point of moving the animals from one cage to another, but this is marketed as a pretty 'green' locale.

Track torn by a drunk taxi driver going over the edge

We drove the van back up the death road (instead of taking the new highway that was opened in 2006) and got a great idea of exactly how unsafe this thoroughfare is. In some spaces, there is no gravel between the tires of the van and the edge of the cliff.  Our guide told us about every crash site as we passed, the largest single incident resulting in over 100 people dead. Why vehicles still use the road was never fully explained (don't ask 'why' in Bolivia), but by far the biggest traffic source is a parade of gringos in bright orange safety vests... better to see them as they tumble down through the trees.