Boliva: Death Road by Mountain Bike
This road full of adrenaline-loaded insanity of an adventure has been on my bucket list for year – mountain biking down the infamous Death Road in Bolivia! The road (known as Yungas Road) was built in 1930 to connect La Paz and the Bolivian jungle town of Coroico. It descends from 4700m/15400ft down to 1100m/3600ft – a vertical drop of 3600m/11800ft in 65km! The first section of the road is asphalted while about 45km is a single lane dirt track along the mountain edge with insane 3000ft dropoffs shrouded in fog. The road is often referred to as Road of Death and the Most Dangerous Road in the World – every year over 300 people would die in bus and truck crashes traveling here. These days however, the traffic is mostly biking and downhill as the new road was built to go around. Nevertheless, a biker or two still manage to plunge to their death every year. Fully equipped with a massive helmet and full body protection suit, I biked all the wait, almost without falling. Cloud forest was quite foggy (as it should be) with most of the scary turns and abyss dropoffs obscured, which probably was a good thing. Freezing subzero temps of the top with no oxygen and humid jungle with parrots at the bottom – all in a matter of hours! Death Road – check!
