Coroico - Death Road

You can go the road from La Paz to Coroico on a bus or you can go on mountain bike and it's mostly all downhill. It has some of the most dramatic scenery imaginable with a gaping valley, a huge forest and views that go on for miles and miles. At Coroico there's a beautiful wee hotel where you can sunbathe, swim and just chill right out from the hustle and stinks of La Paz. Sounds amazing... bikes, scenery, luxury... but I decided months ago I would not under any circumstances be going down what is otherwise known as the World's Most Dangerous Road or Death Road. It´s a two way road and runs along about 40k of a cliff edge, is full of sharp, blind corners and if you take your attention away from the road for too long you can just go flying off the edge and some of it is just a sheer 400 meter drop. The stories go, one girl, when hearing a lorry was coming got off her bike to let it pass, but stood on the wrong side of her bike (should be her between the bike and the lorry, her bike between her and the edge of the road) and when the lorry passed she took a step backwards into nothing and over the edge of the cliff to her death. Another guy was looking at birds as he cycled and suddenly found himself flying too, fortunately he got off with a few broken bones. One guy´s wife and child were killed when two lorries coming towards each other crashed head on and as a result he decided to set up a station at blind corners with red and green flags to let people know when they need to stop (there are loads of people now still doing this, voluntarily). So, after hearing all these stories about it, and knowing me, I decided ages ago that I was no way in the world doing it as I would probably be the one to go flying. So that was that, no more to be said about the matter.

Until we got to La Paz!!!

There are loads of tour companies offering the Death Road bike tour and if you glance into the shops, as I did, you see T shirts that say things like 'I Survived the World's Most Dangerous Road' and the like. After passing one of them when I first arrived in La Paz, I just thought, 'I want one of those' and that´s how I changed my mind and came to my decision to cycle the Death Road. Wooohooooo!!!

You start at the top at 4400m above sea level and it's a pretty cold start to the day at that altitude I can tell ye! (Thankfully, it gets much warmer the farther you go down). After the bike lesson and danger warnings you go through this ritual of blessing your bike with some of the old favourite 94% alcohol and also to take a swig.... lovely, just what you want at 9am!! It's then asphalt for 20k before hitting the World's Most Dangerous part which is very windy, very gravelly, often narrow, sometimes dusty, sometimes wet and muddy and at one point you even cycle through waterfalls. It's pretty much as described above, with a steep gravel path winding right along a cliff edge the whole way down to Coroico. There's only a 6km uphill part and if you want you can do that on the bus, or as we did, push you bike up as it's really hard to exert yourself at this altitude and nobody wants to be the first to get on the bus. You go round some pretty tight bends and down some steep gradients so it's vitally important you know how best to use your bike and brakes, and our guides gave us all the best advice before setting off and as and when required during the day.

I must admit I got a wee bit scared when I approached a couple of corners a bit fast but after one or two my confidence went up a bit as the bikes are great quality and didn't go into skids or anything (thankfully!!). You´re aware of the huge drop right next to you, which is scary if you look at it, but your attention´s on the road the whole time anyway, not over the edge. We had three guides one leading, one in the middle and one at the back and all communicating with each other, and us, using whistles to say when to stop or when to slow and be cautious. We stopped I think about 16 times to regroup and get ´worded up´about the section of road ahead and what dangers to watch for so I reckon our company, Gravity, was second to none in looking after us. Especially when we were all stopped because of an oncoming car when we saw our friend, who was with another company, go flying past on his own and we had to shout him to stop - where was his guide??!!

Our bus followed us the whole way with supplies of water, food and medical equipment and at one point it got stuck behind a truck that was head on with another one having a stand off as to who was going to reverse round the cliff. The rule is the one coming down has to reverse up but he was arguing that his load was too heavy. So, we all just overtook and carried on to the end, leaving the trucks, and our bus, to sort things out (which they did).

We all got to the end with no incidents, all safe and certainly exhilerated. (For the record, Gravity have never had any deaths on their tours). The bus caught up with us at Coroico where we got our lunch, a free beer and, what I came for, an ´I Survived...´ T-Shirt .

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