The World´s Most dangerous road...

The road between La Paz and the tropical town of Coroico (we´re in Bolivia now) has a death toll of 100 people per year, making it the the highest rate for any 40km stretch of road in the world. Travelling both up and down it, I could understand why. Yes, it may even compete with certain taxi-governed streets back home. (Although there are certain tiny countryside lanes in England that could come close to it!)

Having convinced Bec to join me climbing a volcano, I thought it only fair that I agree to do what she wanted, which was to mounan bike down this hair-razing stupid “World´s most dangerous road” with nothing but a couple of meters between me and a 400m drop, aka certain death.

Now if any of you know about me and mountain bikes (I know my brother does) you´ll know that we don´t get on awfully well and it´s pretty much one of the scariest things you could ask me to do. Add a one lane mountain pass full of impatient trucks and horrible drops and I definitely feel that I did something that day that scared me. At least the scenery was incredible, not that I was looking at it much.

Acually, after about ten minutes on the bike I kind of got used to it and even started enjoying myself. It no longer felt that stupid and I didn´t think every second that I was about to die. Once I was comfortable on my bike I actually even started thinking about taking up this sport – see, you never know until you really try something!

The road itself has an interesting system. Normally in Bolivia one drives on the right hand side of the road. But on this road, you drive on the “left”. I use the term “left” loosely here as there only really is one lane and therefore saying there is a left and right side is a bit of an overstatement. Anyhoo, because it is so steep, trucks coming up the pass have right of way. Trucks coming down therefore have to wait in a little passing bay while trucks coming up go past. But, when there is no passing bay, trucks coming own have to reverse up, and therefore need to see their wheels on the “drop” side so that they don´t go off the edge. Being road-conscious cyclists, this meant that we too were cycling down on the “drop” side. Yikes.

Every now and then one passes a man, or indeed a whole family, standing on a corner waving a red or green flag. From their vantage point they can see what trucks are coming up and warn vehicles coming down to slow down. This is all on a volunteer basis and was started by a man, Timotei, who tragically lost his entire family in an overtaking-on-a-blind-corner head on collision. He relies on donations from drivers as his income and he has inspired other people in nearby communites to do the same.

Our downhill thrill ended in the lovely village of Coroico where we were completely spoiled with much needed HOT showers, a swimming pool and lunch, before we headed back up to La Paz along the same road. This time was harder to get used to. It was late and dark and the fog was so heavy you couldn´t see further than 2 meters ahead of the van. We had to back down for a bigger truck that ended up passing us on the inside. This was far more terrifying than bumping down on a bike in the happy light of day! No casualties this trip though, I´m glad to say. Our guardian angels were doing their thing and we had a very experienced driver. I may have aching arms now but it really was fun and I´m so glad I agreed to it all.