The World´s Most Dangerous Road

Coroico, Bolivia
We heard that the officially declared World´s Most Dangerous Road (aka The Death Road) was in Bolivia but we had a hard time believing it, with all the terrible roads we had seen thus far in our journey. When Steve heard that we could mountain bike on it to our next destination, he knew he wanted to try. I took a bit more convincing.

Death Road points of interest:
-Built by Paraguayan P.O.Ws without the benefit of heavy equipment
-single lane, packed dirt, winding road with drop offs of nearly 500m
-no guard rails
-60 km long but over 4km of vertical drop
-numerous deaths each year of cars and buses falling over the edges
-as of 4 months ago, a new highway is in use, diverting nearly all traffic (except bicycles) away from the dangerous road
-as with any tourist attraction, there are numerous agencies touting for your business...the best t-shirt, the most safety conscious, the best english speaking guide and of course the cheapest.

The Choice
We decided against the cheapest option this time, rather for the one that instilled the most confidence in terms of safety and quality equipment. We had full suspension bikes with disc brakes that worked very well.

The Ride
We were driven to the highest point of the ride (roughly 4800 meters above sea level). Unfortunately, it was a miserable, foggy, rainy start to the day, and we were soaking wet in the first 15 minutes of the 6 hr ride. On the plus side, as the altitude decreased, it got constantly warmer and we ended the day warm and very, very muddy.
When the clouds finally did break, there were breathtaking views of the lush green valleys and waterfalls over the road as well as deep drops over the sides of the roads
Our guide was extra safety conscious and while we wished we could have ridden faster we had agreed before we started to enjoy the ride for views rather than seek additional thrills.

The Recovery
At the end we were greeted by hot showers (okay, okay they were warm electric showers where the warm was intermixed with cold) followed by a delicious buffet lunch of veggies, chicken in a peppercorn cream sauce, and rice.

We stayed in Coroico for a few days after the ride enjoying the thick air (way easier to walk around here vs. La Paz) and the view from our hotel room. Our hotel was perched on the edge of a valley over a km deep and we enjoyed watching the condors ride the thermal air currents up past our window. We hope to get pictures of this on Flickr soon so check out the Photos link on the side of our blog.