On the Deathroad

On my last day in La Paz I cycled down the famous "Deathroad". This road was once the only connection between the cities La Cumbre (4700m altitude) and Coroico (1700m) and is known as the most dangerous road in the world.
Why? It is not more than an unpaved path down a valley, where you have the abyss of several 100m next to you. It is so narrow, that you barely can fit a car on this small lane. Every time when two cars have to pass each other it is more than risky and dangerous (especially for the one next to the cliffs...).
Ah yeah, I forgot to mention that there are hardly any crash barriers to protect the cars from falling down the cliffs (Why? Well, that is BOLIVIA!!).
Every year about 700 people died on this road by falling down with their cars the cliffs. That's almost 2 persons/day!!

A few years ago a new road was built taking a less dangerous root through the mountains. So nowadays the old road is mainly used by agencies to offer downhill-tours with full suspension bikes for brave (and a little bit crazy) tourists. As well as by some patriotic Bolivians, still using this road by car...

Together with six very cool people and the coolest two guys you can find in Bolivia, we cycled down the most dangerous road in the world.
One guide in the front and one in the back we made about 3000m altitude difference during our ride.
The first part was pretty easy as it was part of the new paved road. As we turned right after 30min to the old road the real adventure begins. We found our self on an unpaved narrow road with big rocks spreaded on the road every now and then.
But the full suspension bikes did their jobs, so we just rode our bikes with full speed over this crappy road. You do not feel any big shock or vibration with those kind of bikes, it just feels a little bit spongy, but you get used to it... :-)

The weather also changed from freezing cold and foggy on the top, to tropical warm and clear at the bottom.
According to our guides we were a very fast group and it took us about 2,5h to cycle down this killer-road. At the end of our ride we had a nice lunch and rewarded our self with cold beer for an injury-free downhill session.

After lunch we put our bikes on the roof of our van and we had two options to go back to La Paz: The Deathroad or the new, safer but longer road. Guess what road we took... :-)

On our ride up the "Deathroad" by car we stopped several times and enjoyed the view, as we did not pay attention when we were riding our bikes down the road. You were just fixed on the road, very concentrated and trying to make no mistake. As a mistake on this road can result your death, you simply have no time to enjoy the view... :-)

We also started drinking beer and Cuba libre and arrived in La Paz completely drunken singing and yelling songs in Spanish...
It was a really nice last day in Bolivia for me and one of my highlights on my trip in South America.
I can just recommend this ride to everybody who searches for the ultimate kick... :-)