Surviving the worlds most dangerous road....

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Mum, you might want to sit down.... Yesterday I rode 64kms and travelled vertical distance of 3,650m down the most dangerous road in the world on a mountain bike! I survived with no injuries, apart from a dozen or so nasty mosquito bites. I first heard about this a couple of years ago from a friend who´d been travelling in south america and it´s something I´ve wanted to do for ages. As Heather says, my idea of a holiday is throwing myself down a mountain on a bike and hoping for the best. You can imagine how excited I was!

It was an early start to met the group and the guide, a friendly swedish guy who liked to take the piss out of everyone. We jump in the van and it´s less than 2 minutes before we start hearing stories of injury and death. The Yunga road was officially named the ´worlds most dangerous road´ by the world bank due to the excessive number of fatalities. This year already there have been 43 deaths on the road (low on average, it´s usually 60 at this time of year). Mostly buses falling off the edge on narrow windy passes, with sheer drops of up to 3600m in some spots.

Starting at La Cumbre at 4,760m we make our way down the new road that has been built. This is a properly surfaced road with traffic. The views are amazing, however you need to remember to concerntrate on the road. Don´t want to write yourself off daydreaming as some of the other tourists have done! First stop to admire the views we look down into the valley. You can see the rusty remains of a bus that has fallen off the edge. Far out!!!

About half way through we switch route to the old road, a long narrow dusty windy road. This is where it gets serious. As we descend, the barren mountains turn into beautiful jungle. The views here are truely spectacular. I was a bit nervous starting this section, even though I´ve done a bit of biking. The instructions were to go on the outside track, close to the edge to avoid any upcoming traffic which would have right of way. There is no arguing with a bolivian truck driver whose taking the old road to save a few boliviano´s worth of petrol.

Very quickly I got over the nervousness, built up my confidence and just went for it. The ride is awesome fun, you can go pretty quick with so much downhill assistance. I had to keep reminding myself to concerntrate on the path and not the views. One poor chap recently got distracted by a condor flying above and went over the edge following the condor. Ah... No thanks!

Obviously I made it down in one piece, as did everyone else in the group. Highly recommend this to anyone who´s interested. It was fawesome!

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Photos

Starting up high
Loads of protective gear on, probably too much!

Typical monument
There were loads of these by the side of the road where buses etc have gone over the edge

Finally home safe!
We finished the end of the ride at a lodge which was an animal refuge. All good fun!