Blogs from Yungas Road, La Paz Department, Bolivia, South America - page 6

The Worlds most dangerous road as it is referred to was a brilliant experience. Apparently, before it was closed to general traffic 9 months ago, an average of 3-400 people died on the road each year which is enough to make people a little nervous. The road starts at 4,750 metres above sea level in the hills above La Paz, and drops to 1,100 metres in Coroica 64kms of riding later. Having been fully kitted out with equipment which included full suspension mountain bikes, trousers, jackets, helmets, goggles for dust protection and gloves we were briefed and set off down the top section which is straight forward tarmac for 20kms to get used to the bikes and kit. The group of 14 riders was made up of a whole range of abilities and experience which showed ... read more

Some info about the famous Death Road! The Yungas road was built by Paraguayan prisoners of war in the 1930s as a route between Coroico and La Paz and is a spectacular 38-mile ride, descending more than 3600m from the Andean mountains at 4800m to the Amazonian jungle at 1100m. It was first called the death road in 1995 when 200 hundred lives were lost the previous year and which prompted them to build a safer modern road. Unfortunately this route is twice as long so many locals still take the old route to save time and money! On average 26 vehicles plummet over the roads edge killing about 100 people every year! We decided to do this on Mountain bike with B-Side adventures! The first 12 miles were road and the bikes were reaching speeds ... read more

So after a big long weekend with birthday celebrations I decided to join a group of friends and try our luck mountain biking down what they call the Death Road. Thinking that I would have recovered enough from the weekend I booked in and was just going to hope for the best. I woke on Monday morning feeling a little vague, something you don´t really want to be feeling on a day you are going to apparantly risk your life. An early 6.30am start saw us walking in the cold to the tour office for breakfast, where we loaded up on tea, coffee, hot toasted sandwiches (this is a bit of a treat) and the usual half stale bread, jam and butter. We are then kitted out in our wonder looking equipment that we have ... read more

While in La Paz we made 2 trips. One was cycling down Death Road which meant that you had to cycle from 4700m to 1300m above sea level. I was by no means the fastest cyclist as you can sea from the photos there was always the sheer drop beside you to consider! I got there in the end though even if my hands were in bits from pulling on the breaks! Check out the nice cycling gear we had to wear. We also went to Rurrenebaque to do the Pampas tour and spot some wildlife. Despite our flight being cancelled twice, we finally made it. We spent 2 days on and off a small boat and were shown so many birds, crocodiles, pink dolphins, wild monkeys an we also went pirana fishing. Mientras en ... read more

After the Bolivian government decided that this road was way to dangerous to be used as a public thoroughfare they embarked on a scheme to construct a new beaute safer road. This only took them 12 years. What to do with the old, windy, twisty, dirt road winding its way down some 3,000m ?? well ... lets charge gringos to hire mountain bikes and let them hurl themselves down and see if they have more luck than the phenominal number of motorists who have met their fate on this road. uh huh. great plan. so, how did we end up biking down the world´s most dangerous road ? will the answer "seemed like a good idea at the time" suffice ? ok, maybe it was the free t-shirt, maybe the spectacular views, maybe the opportunity to ... read more