Death Road (La Paz, Bolivia)

This bike riding adventure was a huge highlight of the entire trip. Thrilling, exhilarating, and for me (Claire), absolutely frightening.

The tour operators picked us up from our hostel bright and early and drove us 45 minutes to the starting point. The starting point was at an altitude of 4900 meters above sea level and so it was absolutely freezing - we were both wearing every layer of clothing we had, including ski gloves and ski goggles.

There were 4 other customers and 2 guides accompanying us on this trip. There was no long safety lecture, rather, we were given our mountain bikes, checked if the brakes worked, and set straight off.

The bike ride was all down hill - no pedal work really required. The only work we did was holding onto the brakes for the whole trip down.

The road is called "Death Road" because it is said to be the most dangerous road in the world. The road is made of rough gravel and at places, is only as wide as a car. On one side of the road are spectacular mountains, and on the other side, 600 meter cliff drops. The view is absolutely breathtaking, and the enormous drop offs on the side of the road are jaw dropping.

Hundreds of people have been killed on this road when it was used as a main 2 way thoroughfare. It is easy to see how people died as the road is no wider than the width of one car, and it used to have lots of trucks and buses coming both ways at fairly fast speeds. The worst accident we heard of was when a bus and a semi-trailor collided head on in the middle of the night and both went over the cliff killing all 110 people. There are crosses all along the road marking the hundreds of people who have been killed.

The road is not used as the main thoroughfare to La Paz anymore because a new highway has been built. However, cars still go up and down, and we passed a few on our bike ride. People still die on the road on the bike rides that we did and there are crosses marking those spots as well. The gravel is quite precarious and there are waterfalls along the road making it slippery along the way.

All this was whizzing in my head as we cruised down the road and I couldn't stop trembling. The first 31km was smooth and like a regular highway, but the cold was the real killer. The next 30km was on the real death road - gravel, narrow and frightening. We went at a fairly steady pace and stopped every 10 mins to rest our hands and take in the view (it was hard to look at anything other than the road when riding). The backup van followed us all the way down and we had snacks and drinks along the way. Wes loved every minute of it and wanted to open up and speed down super fast. I was less inclined. A girl in our group flipped over her handlebars but fortunately this was on a wider bit, but that certainly made us all slow down.

We finished at the low altitude of 1000 meters above sea level, and by that point had stripped off all our layers and rode only in t-shirts. We spent the afternoon at a hotel, having showers and a 3 course lunch - all part of the tour package.
(Spot the cyclist on the road in this picture)

Overall, the ride really was a thrill and an incredible experience. The photos don't do it justice, but will have to do.