Death Road - Bolivien

Death Road.... sounds quite, hm, let's put it that way: drastic or final ... rather than sad or dramatic! 

Why exactly should you even pay to go down there ? Before my travels even started I had already read quite a lot about this road. It used to be the only ! road to get from La Paz down into the yungas valley and the town Coroico ... and further on toward the amazon. One road carved into the mountain and during many parts so narrow that only one car can get past.

Some years ago there was finally a wider and straighter new road built and the old death road became THE THING for travellers to do by bike !

:-) As I like biking and also great views I was keen on doing this tour ! And after I checked out which companies have the most decent bikes I book my tour!

Early in the morning we headed off to over 4.500 meter ... freezing cold and I was happy we had to change in our provided bike gear! Also breathing was getting hard again...but after some introduction we headed down ... first we started about half an hour down on the new road.. nicely paved and wide and there is even a side rail. 

The view was amazing the sun shining ...still.. until we came to the start of the old road. Now we were in the middle of the clouds and it started raining... The death road turned into a mud path ...and I was actually getting more worried now! The tires were really good though in this conditions I was slipping through the mud and falling over the edge seemed a real possibility now!

I decided to go slow ... my group was soon gone and some other crazy groups were  overtaking me soon... but I wanted to enjoy and get at least some great views as the mist changed a lot.... and of course I wanted to survive! ( apparently a girl fell 18 m deep 2 weeks beforehand but magically survived ... )

We were followed by the tour bus all the time and there was actually some traffic on the road as there are some houses and fields on these steep cliffs. But some of the trucks were stuck due to the slippery road so there were "traffic jams" to overtake ;-)

As we came further down the climate and fauna changes rapidly .... After the desert feeling from the hights and the cold it was soon getting warmer and warmer and it started to look like in the dschungel. Big ferns,  exotic plants, small rivers falling down in cascades right and left. .. and we luckily got to see some great views into the valley far down. 

The amount of the crosses, flowers and Maria-shrines along the road reminded me of all the lifes lost and provided a mystic atmosphere like in old movies on a graveyard with the next murder just around the corner. One  woddden cross more than 2 meters high was standing on the edge of the cliff overlooking the valley fully covered in moss and plants.

Finally we made it to the bottom,  dead but happy !Yeah!!!  :-)

At dinner I met an older Swiss couple which I passed during the bike tour down and we started talking about this amazing day probably still full of adrenalin. I am amazed that they did this tour as I cannot imagine my parents going down this road.

And of course she tells me, that she was quite scared. He is more worried about the great views he missed due to the weather and is wondering if he should try it again ! Oh I say... but we survived it once , not sure about the next time ;-)

Check out Wikipedia: death road