The World's Most Dangerous Road - awe-inspiring views, just keep your eyes on the road!
One of the things that we had looked forward to doing, ever since we thought about taking a year off, was mountain biking on the “World's Most Dangerous Road”.
The road from La Paz to Coroico has long held this monniker, as well as “Death Road” or “The Death Highway”, due to the road having the most number of fatalties annually in the world – the overwhelming majority of these from trucks and buses going over the edge.
The road winds its way down the mountain through lush cloud forest, dropping from a max altitude at La Cumbre of 4,700 metres to Yolosa, a small village at the bottom of the valley at 1,100 metres, a descent of 3,600 metres. The road itself is around 64 kms, 40 of these on gravel.
The road has now been bypassed with the majority of traffic now using the new, paved road, however mountain biking is still done on the original road which is also maintained in case of issues with the new road, such as landslides or washouts which occur every year in the rainy season.
Although the thrill of riding down a road with such an infamous reputation was a good incentive to do the ride, the landscape and vistas of the ride are some of the most breath-taking in the world and this was the main reason that we were so keen to get on two-wheels and brave the descent.
The company that we had decided to go with was one of the first to take groups down the mountain, Gravity Assisted Mountain Biking, which has a great safety record and are very professionally run.
We were up early to catch our bus from La Paz to La Cumbre, it was pretty drizzly and cold and we were wondering if we had chosen the worng day to do it! However we were assured by the guides that the weather invariably gets better with the descent.
Our guides, Matt (a Kiwi) and our other guide, native Bolivian, name escapes me, but reputedly the best rider in South America (won the title at the last championship)!
We rode a bus up to the top where we were given our gear and bikes, the bikes being in great condition, with double suspension, making the ride down a lot more comfortable. The first part of the ride was extremely cold, with numbness setting into everyones' hands, despite the gloves.
Before we took off, we had a small sip of some absolutely foul tasting liquor, as well as poured a little on our bikes and the ground as a sacrifice to Pachamama - the Inca Earth Goddess - this is all done for luck.
We passed through a drug checkpoint, where the Bolivian police (in theory) check out trucks and cars for cocaine or materials used to make cocaine, such as ammonia, toilet paper, etc. If you're wondering how the toilet paper comes into it, so am I!
After paying some highway taxes (for foreigners only, very common in Bolivia!), we had a little bit of an uphill climb. Steph was very proud to be the only girl that didn't wimp out and get in the truck for the uphill portion!
Steph, a little puffed, after the uphill climb!
We finally got to the start of the “official” Death Road and, as the guides said it would, the weather was starting to clear up. This was the start of some truly stunning scenery as well as the the dramatic drop offs (some reaching 600 metres) down into the jungle below.
The start of the "official" Death Road...
...Steph (white helmet and braids) taking her first ride down the gravel...
...and the view over the edge...
We also encountered a couple of sections where there were new landslides from the previous few days' rain.
In one of these sections our support vehicle got bogged and all the guys in the group had to head back up to help push it out. Our Bolivian guide was directly behind the wheel and got a good spraying of mud!
We arrived at Yolosa, posed for a group shot then headed to an animal refuge for lunch, a much needed shower and a beer – what a fantastic ride!
I had bugs on my teeth from smiling so much!
Our group - we all survived!
The Animal refuge where we ended up is called “La Senda Verde” and was setup specifically for animals that people had taken on wild animals as pets, shouldn't have and ended up giving them to the refuge as they had become too much trouble (and less cute) when they matured. The majority of the animals are native monkeys, however there are also many parrots, water fowl, macaws, a coaite and baby and even an ocelot.
People can volunteer to help at the refuge or simply stay as guests and we decided to stay here a night before heading up for a few days in Coroico.
Steph was in heaven, playing with all of the monkeys and taking hundreds of pictures!
After our stay at the refuge, we shared a cab up with a British couple, Nikki and Ed, who had been staying at the refuge. We decided to stay at a place highly recommended by our guide book and the manager of the refuge called Sol Y Luna.
Although a bit difficult to get to, it was an amazing place with sweeping views of the valley, swimming pools and great rooms for a reasonable price – about $20 a night for our own room with bath and kitchen.
The views from Sol y Luna
We were hoping that the two days we had in Coroico were going to be pretty relaxed, it was sort of an "enforced" break, due to our jungle tour and boat to Rurrenbaque, which only left once a week on Saturdays.
The night after we stayed at the refuge (Thursday night) we decided to head down to dinner to a place called El Cafatel, a place that was supposed to have amazing food, we were told that it was about a 20 minute walk. We headed out at around 7:30pm and, after asking for directions, we realised that it was going to be pretty difficult to navigate from Sol y Luna to the restaurant in the dark, however we were sure that we'd find the place eventually.About 200 metres down the dirt track that constitiutes the road between Sol y Luna and town, we were greeted by an enormous German Sheperd. We were a little nervous approaching him, however he seemed to be pretty friendly and, to our surprise, he decided to join us on the walk into town.
We wandered through town with many of the stray dogs barking at our new friend, however he didn't seem to be phased at all and just happily loped along with us. We finally found the restaurant after about a 45 minute walk (not the 20 minutes we were told) and our new dog decided to join us on the patio.
For Bolivia's best food, El Cafatel was pretty quiet and we were wondering if it was all a bit of sham, however, we sat down and were amazed to find interesting things on the menu such as llama goulash, lamb madras curry and lamb shanks with potato puree and veges. The food was absolutely excellent and fantastic value at $6-$8 a main.
Arco - his own dog
Although we were initially nervous about the fact the dog had followed us into the restaurant, the owners happily informed us that our dog's name was “Arco”, he was the biggest dog in town and well known to everyone. He happily shared our meal with us and drank some of our water.
From left to right: Ed, Arco, Me, Nikki and Steph
On our way back to our hotel, we were convinced that we had not taken the correct way from Sol y Luna as it had taken twice the amount of time to get to the restaurant that it was supposed to. When we were asking some of the locals for directions, they informed us that “El perro sabe!”, ie “The dog knows”.
We found a staircase up the hill and Arco shooed away some stray dogs with a low growl, led us up the steps, then a dirt track past an old cemetary and a military compound to come back to the road to Sol y Luna. In total, it took us about 10 minutes, easily saving us half an hour compared to our initial circuitous route through town. As we were approaching our hotel, Arco stopped at the exact spot where he had joined us on the way down, in effect “dropping us off”, and we said goodbye and walked back to our hotel.
So thanks to Arco for showing us the way!
We passed our remaining day in Coroico relatively quietly, although I still managed to lose my Red Sox hat in an internet cafe or somewhere. Another highlight on Friday night was having traditional German food at Back Stube, a German-owned restaurant in the town centre -I had the Spatzel which was very tasty.
On the morning of Saturday 12th April, we walked into town with all of our gear, keen to start our jungle tour and boat trip to Rurre in the Bolivian Amazon!
