Death Road

Yes, after weeks of talking ourselves in to and out of this possibility, we finally decided to give the death road a try. For those who don´t know, this is a road, not far from La Paz, that goes over a pass to get to the town of Coroico and beyond.

I has a reputation as the ¨Worlds Most Dangerous Road¨, based on the huge loss of life on this road over the years. It was build in the 1930s and was simply blasted out of the edge of the mountains, one lane wide gravel or dirt(mud) surface, with sheer drops and no guard rails. And two-way traffic just to make it interesting.

Not surprisingly, they recorded an average of 200 to 300 deaths on this road every year until just a few years ago when a new road was finally completed which took the bulk of the traffic off of the old road. Now it is primarily used by the many adventure biking companies that offer a 64 km downhill ride of your life. While it is not quite as dangerous for bikes (they only lose about 1 rider a year), it is still not a ride everyone would choose.

We had spoken to various people who had done the ride recently, and got opinions from ¨boring¨to ïncredible¨to ënjoyable¨to ¨scary¨. The last girl we ran into, just after booking our ride, had fallen and broken her clavical and had spent the last two months in La Paz recuperating. In the end, we believe the ride is whatever you want to make of it. If you go off hell-bent for maximum thrills, it is possible to get into serious trouble. If you stay in control and choose your own pace, it is not too scary and quite enjoyable. At least, that is what we found when we did it. The company we chose to use http://www.madness-bolivia.com/ was based on some good feedback we got from some people we met in Cuzco, combined with the fact that they use Canadian made bikes.

The ride down starts on pavement and is very fast. A good oportunity to get to know the bikes.

There is a 4km uphill section which we opted to skip and ride in the van. Russ and Richard did try it but did not make it far. Just too high altitude for us to get our breath.

Then we diverged from the pavement and started the actual ¨death¨part of the road for the last 40km or so. All downhill on loose gravel, dirt and mud. We went through a couple of waterfalls and forded two small rivers along the way. Unfortunately for us, we encountered quite a bit of rain and fog (cloud?) on the way down and it was not always pleasant.

At the top it is 4655m and very cold. After descending 3345m in height, the end is in a subtropical jungle in the small town of Yolosa, where beer and soft-drinks were available for the thirsty riders.

After everyone was down, they trucked us up to the town of Coroico where we elected to spend the night, in hopes that the weather would improve. The hotel had a nice pool and a beautiful setting in the jungle, with magnificent views all around, but the sun would just not come out for us. As a result, we grabbed a taxi back to La Paz after only the one night.

Back in La Paz, we continue to just wander around, soaking up the different cultures of the place. We did find a theatre where we were able to take in the latest James Bond flick (English with Spanish subtitles). Pretty neat that it is partly set in La Paz.

Russ and Val are leaving us tomorrow, so we will be on our own. No telling what trouble we will get into now...