Blogs from Yungas Road, La Paz Department, Bolivia, South America - page 11

The “World most dangerous road” or “Death Road” as it is lovingly called by some tour operators in La Paz is a 40 km stretch of dirt road on between La Cumbre and Coroico just outside of La Paz. The stats say that on average 20 vehicles go over the unprotected edges and around 100 people loose their lives on this stretch of road per year. The cliff drops in some places a couple of hundred meters before gravity is defeated by well ground. The reasons why there are so many accidents is that the dirt on the road is very fine and therefore slipper and the road is in most places only 2.5-3 m wide. In winter this is even made worse by heavy rains. Oh and did I mention that the road is ... read more

The first leg of our trip to the jungle was by bike, along what is dubbed 'the most dangerous road in the world'. Here´s a little extract from a newspaper clipping from 2002¨: 'The single-lane mud-covered road is being promoted as an ideal spot for extreme mountain-biking, even before the trucks and buses heading between La Paz and Coroico get an alternative route. In the latest accident, a bus believed to have been carrying more than its permitted 45 people, slid off the road in early morning fog and plummeted 170 metres down a ravine.' You descend 3600m over 4 hours down a winding, dusty, narrow, one way road. Of course it´s also unpaved and you're also sharing it with lorries and tourist buses hurtling round corners with nothing more than the usual alert system, a ... read more

This has become the de facto capital of Bolivia- beautiful city surrounded by hills with houses and mansions hugging the mountain-side catering for a rapidly growing population. Having arrived from Sucre by overnight bus that left my body numb with cold as the roof window refused to close above me…we made it to our even colder hostel called Hotel Torino- Which happens to make the best coffee in Bolivia. But as we sat down savour the body thawing coffee, we could here the music outside jiving to the sounds of Ricky Martin´s ¨She Bangs, She bangs….ooh baby, the way she moves, she moves…I go crazy…¨ we step outside to the main plaza and find well over a hundred policemen in the plaza engaged in a session of Tai Bow- like something you would see in a ... read more

Birthdays are a pretty big occasion and should be celebrated that way! It took a lot, A LOT of convincing on Sean's part to get me to agree to celebrate his BIG DAY on a Mt. Bike... we went with the longest running most reputable place in La Paz - basically for a trip descending 11,800 ft (3600 metres) down to Corico along the ¨worlds most dangerous road¨. We wisely went with Gravity Bolivia where their motto is going down's never been better ... read more

The first time i heard about the Death Road was from an Irish lad in Cusco, it seemed to involve downhil mountain biking down a cliff hugging road with sheer drops for a day, sounds fun. That was until the facts became apparent, and i love facts. The road from La Paz to Coroico is 64km long and its 90% downhill, built in the 1940s its claimed on average 36 vehicles a year, considering these vehicles can contain upto 40 locals/tourists, thats alot of lives each year, that last buss went over a month ago, no one survived. If you beleive the locals this is due to the ghosts of the prisoners of wars, who built the road, still haunting the road and pulling the trucks over the edge, however the road being single dirt track ... read more