Bolivia Part 4 - The World's Most Dangerous Road

So I was in La Paz again for just one more day before making my way back towards Peru for my return flight to Buenos Aires in just over a weeks time. I had been in and around La Paz for over 2 weeks now and, with valid excuses, hadn't had the chance to do one of the most tantalising and controversial adventure activities in Bolivia - to ride a mountain bike down the World's Most Dangerous Road. Most other travellers I'd been talking with had been raving about it, while many others chose to not take the risk.

A section of the road on a better day - this was all cloudy on our day.

The facts aren't pretty - built by Paraguayan prisoners during the war back in the 1930's, the road is a narrow gravel strip of varying quality chiseled into the side of enormous cliffs that drop hundreds of metres down to the Coroico river below. It joins the tropical Yungas region (elevation of approx 1000m) to the capital of La Paz (elevation 3800m) via La Cumbre - a high point of 4700m - by barely hanging on to the side of an Andean mountain. Many of the prisoners perished during its construction, thousands of Bolivians since, and now the odd tourist as well.

Some pics from the net...

A long way down...

Last year a new, safer, paved road was finally opened (after 20 years of construction) which means the "death road" is now only used by local traffic and mountain bikers with their support vehicles. Unfortunately it also means what little road maintenance there was, is now even less (landslides are common in the wet season), despite a tax payable by each mountain biker to go towards keeping it open.

Anyway, onto those facts... while the road was the only link between northern Bolivia and the capital, it is estimated between 200 and 300 people died each year. In one year alone, 25 vehicles plunged off the road into the ravine below - thats one every 2 weeks! Many of these were large trucks and buses whose wreckages were too large to safely remove, so they still lay where they fell (we saw many of them on the ride). One bus had 60 passengers and there were no survivors. The nearest hospital is 2 hours away and rescues here are extremely dangerous and often not very successful.

Wet and cloudy - our group on one of the dangerous corners.

The same corner from a wider angle on a better day.

But probably the most startling fact is that 8 mountain bikers have died since organised tours began 5 or 6 years ago. One Israeli died just a few months ago. Amongst those 8 were 3 guides! When I asked how this could be, the answer from our guide was that they ride the road every day and therefore their exposure to the obvious risks is much higher.

All the South American guidebooks advised to choose your tour company wisely and to be wary of cheap operators, as this was one activity where you don't want anything going wrong or any corners to be cut. One company was consistently highly recommended and proudly boasted "the safest record", but was by far the most expensive, and although my funds were getting low I was reluctantly prepared to go with them. But then some guys I was chatting to in my hostel earlier said I have to go with another company named Freebikes, who offered all the same services as the other company (and more), but with a smaller group and at half the price. I checked them out and was pretty impressed, so the next day I was off on the most dangerous thing I'd done in a while with a small cheap tour company that my guidebook had warned against...hmmm!

The group turned out to be excellent and I would thoroughly recommend them. The bikes, gear, guides, food and transport were all top notch and it was much better to be in a small group of just 4 (plus 2 guides), compared to the 15 or so in the other more expensive group. A whole days fun with everything included - lunch, snacks, drinks, all equipment, showers, a t shirt and CD of pics - was just $US39 with Freebikes. Pretty cheap but still the most expensive daytrip I did in Bolivia!

The Ride - 68km distance and 3650m descent:

It seems strange that a road that links the highest capital city in the world to the low lying tropical jungle should rise at first, but it does - to a chilly 4700m, where our support bus drops us and we start our downhill ride. The first 20km are on smooth, paved highway with snow-capped mountains as backdrops, and cars and trucks as obstacles. It's freezing as we hurtle round the swooping big corners and long straights at top pace. Keeping to the right of the highway we pass some buses as if they are standing still, and then we get passed by some cars as well.

On the fast paved section. That's me in the front.

After passing through a police check, a tough uphill section (its hard to fill the lungs at 3000m!), the pavement ends and the gravel begins. We have descended 1600m already and are in the cloud forest region where, appropriately, it is very cloudy and misty. Unfortunately the clouds and rain didnt lift until the very end of the ride which is rare for this time of the year (dry season), but it did make for a great, muddy, wet (and sometimes slippery) ride down the death road.

The strain on your hands as you clutch the brakes, and the concentration in your mind and eyes on staying on the road is pretty exhausting, so the regular breaks came as welcome relief. We would stop for photos (unfortunately the rain and clouds didn't help much), drinks/snacks, and to observe dangerous points where accidents had occurred or wreckages were still visible. Consistently along the entire road were countless crosses, plaques and memorials to lost ones, which was a constant reminder to focus and concentrate.

After riding under waterfalls, through streams, and over bridges we finally got down into the jungle area and could take off some layers and have fun going down the dry tracks a bit faster. One of the other guys took it a bit quick round a hairpin turn and came unstuck, but nowhere near a cliff edge, fortunately. The adrenalin was constantly running for the entire ride and as gratifying as it was to reach the end safely, it was also a shame for it to end. Definitely a highlight of Bolivia!

Muddy, sore and dirty but happy!

Bolivia Part 3 - The Amazon Jungle

Nothing beats travelling by river to your lodgings

After a few days rest and recouperation in La Paz I caught the next available flight to Rurrenabaque (Northern Bolivia) - a tropical jungle town on the River Beni where the Amazon basin meets the foothills of the Andes. The flight from the highest international airport in the world (La Paz at +4000m), through the Andes and down into the jungle (at about 200m altitude) onto a grass runway in a tiny 20 seater airplane was worth the $75 as a joyflight alone! A couple of days relishing the low altitude (I could finally breathe easy again!) and the boardies-and-thongs climate and then I was off on a 3 day jungle tour.

The 20 seater plane, grass runway, and "airport". The pilot is in front of the plane after just zooming up and down the runway on a motorbike (I have no idea why - to check for potholes??)

2 hours in and our first 4WD was rendered usless by the unforgiving off-road tracks. 1.5 hrs later and our 2nd 4WD had arrived to rescue us (surprisingly quick given our guide had to walk almost to the horizon just to get mobile phone reception). Unfortunately 2 hrs later and the Bolivian "roads" had claimed another victim - this time the suspension was totally rooted and the rear wheels were pushed firm against the chassis. Stuck halfway between our origin and destination, the situation looked grim.

So the guide started walking back to where he got mobile phone reception, and our new driver set to the task of "fixing" the suspension with what little tools and materials he had at hand. This consisted of 2 jacks (one to jack the car up and the other to pry the axle off the chassis - this 2nd one remained permanently in this position!), and a rubber tire inner tube which was cut into long thin strips and tied around the suspension leaves in order to restore some flexibility to the rear axle. It was difficult to watch this painful process over the course of a couple of hours, as all 9 of us were sure that with 11 people in the van this stop-gap solution would fail miserably on this terribly bumpy road. But, somehow, our driver was sure he had completed a perfect job and invited us back in to continue our journey (without our guide who had not yet returned from his walk).

The driver sitting(!) under the precariously propped van tying strips of inner tube around the suspension!!

5 minutes in and a huge pothole beautifully struck in the middle of the rear wheels almost sent the whole ship over on its side, and the nervousness of all on board was clearly evident (I don't think I was this scared even on the Worlds Most Dangerous Road!). The driver reduced speed down to a slow walking pace and was clearly not going to admit defeat just yet, despite voiced concerns from the pasengers. 20 harrowing minutes later and our guide reappeared from behind us, this time in another 4WD with yet another new driver. Needless to say we all literally jumped ship and were so grateful to be in another vehicle, and with all our fingers crossed we finally arrived at the river (only about 5 hrs late) to continue the rest of the journey by canoe. Thankfully that would be the last 4 wheeled vehicle we would see for a few days as our only means of transport from now would be our 10m long, leaky, wooden canoe.

Another perfect sunset!

Our lodgings were basic wooden huts on the muddy banks of the river - 9 of us in one dormitory hut (the beds had mosquito nets luckily!), a dining hut to eat in, basic toilets and a hammock hut overlooking the river where most of our spare time was spent.

This is honestly the un-zoomed view standing next to the canoe which was in front of our lodge - the resident gators were peaceful enough during our stay.

The next morning, after a nice cruise along the river spotting many alligators and caimen basking in the sun, we set off on a walk across the pampas (flat wetlands/plains) for a few hours in search of the harder to see wildlife - anaconda, cobra etc. It was a pretty tough hike for me, mainly because I didn't have knee-high gumboots on like everyone else (they didn't have a pair I could fit my big hoofs into!) so I had to wade through the knee-deep swamp/mud/river with my hiking shoes and bare shins! My legs were pretty cut up and my shoes took days to dry out - I later threw them out as the mud was impossible to get rid of!

We had no luck with anaconda but our guide did snatch a pretty big cobra from its hiding place in the reeds and swung it round his head for a few minutes (to wear it out apparently - not sure if animal rights activists would have approved!) before grabbing it behind the head to show us its fangs and tongue - pretty impressive. Later that day we swam with pink river dolphins (in the same part of the river where we later saw alligators!), which are the only freshwater species of dolphin and are native to the Amazon river system. The water was pretty brown and murky (but refreshing nontheless) so you couldn't see the dolphins until they came up for air - apparently they are the only practically blind species of dolphin in the world.

The next day we baited up small handlines with raw beef and fished off the canoe for piranhas. The little terrors loved it as soon as the bait hit the water, but were pretty tricky to land. I didnt catch one but the half-dozen or so that were landed were fried up for lunch. They were pretty small so didn't have much meat on them, but they tasted ok.

All up we saw countless species of birds, tons of alligators and caimen, cobra, monkeys, dolphins, turtles, capibaras (like a docile big rat the size of a dog) - so it was a pretty good 3 days.

There are 5 turtles and an alligator in this pic - really there is...

...and there are 3 monkeys on top of a woman's head, a hand, and a banana being devoured in this pic.