Most Dangerous Road in the World

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Sorry for the delay in any blogs, the interweb down here is poor at best. We are now in Argentina though which is wonderful and has high speed internet...

Back to 11 days ago.

I (Iain) decided that I had had enough of Inca ruins and museums and wanted some adventure. Whilst in La Paz (Bolivia) booked in to mountain bike down the most dangerous road in the world (MDRW). For those of you who don´t know what this, google it! Basically its about 40km of dirt track that goes from about 3500m elevation to 1100m between two places in bolivia. There are virtually no safety barriers on it and 600+m drops off the side.

Our group of 14 set off on the modern road at 4700m to get used to the bikes for the first 15km which was fine. We then started on the MDRW and about 1/5th of the way down were told there was a landslide blocking it!!! This was a mixed blessing as it meant there would be no vehicles coming up but we did have to climb over it with our bikes!

The ride itself went by quite uneventfully and we passed some interesting sights such as the martyrs of democracy point (where Bolivias government once pushed off 5 opposition party leaders when they realised they were going to lose an election they had announced) and also Claus Barbys former house (he worked for said government as a ´security advisor´. I didn´t really take the chance to look over the edge as the guide told us doing so would mean the bike and then we would go that way!

The day finished up at a little animal sanctury which had some very inquisitive monkeys in it!

Iain.

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Photos

At the Start
Having a much needed safety talk!

Landslide!
Blocking the road off