Cycling The World's Most Dangerous Road

South America » Bolivia » La Paz Department » Coroico
June 26th 2011

Published: July 18th 2011

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Bref Sarah

No nerves here

Does that sound ominous enough for you?! The affectionately named WMDR or ‘Death Road’ is a treacherous, long stretch of road leading from outside of La Paz to Corioca.
True to its name, people have died and the road continues to claim lives each year – our guide told us that around thirty people cash out their chips here on an annual basis (including car and other road transport accidents.) The guy also has the unpleasant memories of seeing people killed here himself. So...of course we were going to go for it!

Our guide was actually a real fun lad hailing from New Zealand. As with pretty much 100% of other Kiwis that I’ve met; this fella was decently crazy too. But even though he was proper good fun, safety was paramount and anyone not listening to his instructions was given an earful before he ensured that we all knew what we were doing.

It was quite chilly when we got suited up and tested our bikes in the morning outside La Paz. The starting point for cycling the WMDR is situated in a beautiful area with Mt. Potosi right there in the background. The cycle takes you from

Deadly Team!

about 4000m above sea level right down to 1200m. Starting in layers of clothes to keep us warm, we were all stripping down to shorts and tees by the end. The road goes from mountain top to jungle over the course of the four hours or so, and the views are truly breathtaking.

For the most part there were no serious incidents with our group. One girl bottled it after a few miles and decided to watch from the bus, Nacho took a couple of small bumps and, I had a bit of a tumble myself.....After a few hundred meters I reckoned that I had a fairly good feel for the bike and started to fancy myself a bit. By the time we hit the scarier twists and turns I was probably speeding a bit too fast than what I should have been; but it felt so good!.... Until on one particular turn when I took the corner a bit late and ended up wiping-out spectacularly. Although in substantial pain, my pride and significant levels of adrenalin enabled me to bounce up and continue to the corner where our guide was waiting. “Yeah, all good – no worries –

Tumble!

Pre-cycle antics...

haha – yep let’s go” was what I think I said. Six weeks later my scar tissue was healing quite well. Silly me😉

Upon making it to the end of the road alive, we finished up at an animal sanctuary for a welcome beer and some food. Sarah and I had a volunteer bring us for a tour and he showed us the animals. Funniest of the lot were the spider monkeys. As you can see from some of the photos, one of them became quite attached to me – literally!

The Death Road experience is not for the light-hearted, but I’m sure that the thousands of tourists who cycle it each year would agree with us that it is an amazing experience that you just can’t get anywhere else. Highly recommended! In case someone is interested, the company we used is called Gravity Bolivia, with a booking office in La Paz.

Additional photos below

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