Chiseled through the steep-sided travel wonder of the Yungas Mountains in Bolivia, the rough one-lane road from shrouded La Cumbre (at a lung-bursting 4700 meters above sea level) to Corioco (at a tropical 1100 meters) is variously described as the World’s Most Dangerous Road and El Camino de la Muerte (the Road of Death). There is supposedly a death every week or so.
With fog, rain, mud, dust, no guardrails, and sheer dropoffs of many hundred meters, it hardly seems the description of the ideal holiday bike ride. Every day adrenaline-soaked cyclists share this treacherous but spectacular road with delivery trucks and vans. One slip and it is your last journey.
The Death Road – the most dangerous road in the world, North Yungas, Bolivia. Your heart leaps every time two of the trucks pass each other. The downhill track, belching fumes like a heavy chain smoker, move gingerly to the outer edge, wheels teetering over a steep fall while the uphill truck carefully sneaks down the inside, the numerous paint marks and scratches worn like scout merit badges, a legacy of past successful journeys.
For the keen mountain cyclist, it is an exhilarating opportunity to plunge over 3,500 vertical meters over 60 kilometers (35 miles) of undulating dirt road with only two short uphill portions. Just think, 60 kilometers and hardly the need to turn a pedal.
Masked with thick fog and mist, little prepares you for the road ahead as your bikes are unloaded and you rug up for the freezing few first kilometers. The only two uphill parts of the whole journey are early on, which is great as pedaling starts to initiate enough blood flow to warm the fingers and toes, and ears. Little can you believe that in five or six hours, you will be sipping cold beer wiping away a dusty sweat in the steamy Amazonian jungle town of Corioco.
As the day clears and warms, your mind is a muddle. Peeling a layer of clothing every half hour as the temperature climbs with the dropping altitude, the mountains start to open up as the mist wafts away. Wanting to enjoy the staggering mountain vistas, waterfalls tumbling down the sheer cliff walls, your eyes dare not venture at all from the rutted road immediately ahead for fear of missing a turn. Your mind resonates all day with the strong message “control your speed” and “don’t use the front brake”. You get the feeling that one lapses and you could be swan-diving over the handlebars and into the jungle below.
Riding the World’s Most Dangerous Road is a truly great travel wonder and travel experience. And the scariest part – the ride back up the road in a truck returning to La Paz.
Footnote
Recently, a new road has been built through to Coroico meaning the trucks and vans are no longer on the road. But the cycling continues.
