The World's Most Dangerous Road!

La Paz, Bolivia

What's up kids? I hope everyone is well. Ok, I've got a lot to talk about, so I guess I should get started. I arrived in the middle of the night in La Paz, Bolivia 2 weeks ago after finishing my school year in Ecuador. I was excited to be done with school and to fall into my more natural state of a traveler. When I woke up on my first day I found myself in the middle of a large festival. I seem to be getting good at blundering in to exciting fiestas, and this one didn't disappoint. A parade through the middle of the city started around 6am. I made it down there about 10am, hoping that I hadn't missed it. I needn't have worried. For three hours I watched locals dance in front of large marching bands wearing elaborate masks and costumes dripping with beads, bells and feathers, while twirling noise makers or jabbing ceramonial spears. Some of their outfits must have weighed more than 30 pounds. As it was a hot day and as La Paz is at 12,000 ft (making it the highest capital city in the world) the dancers lungs must have struggled to find air between sips of pisco and the puffs on cigarettes that were offered every few feet by the throngs of admiring onlookers. I watched the parade for a few hours, and then went off in search of a bar to view the Ecuador vs. Bolivia soccer game. I had finally viewed my first goals first hand only a few days before when Ecuador played Colombia, so I was anxious to see my adopted team play again. I found a bar, but the waitress there wanted to cut me off by halftime after only two beers. In hindsight, I probably shouldn’t have been chanting “¡Si se puede! and other Ecuador chants after each of their 3 first half goals. However, Bolivia scored early in the second half and I was able to resume a working relationship with the beer girl. When Ecuador finally won, 3-2, I decided to leave and find a less hostile environment.

The next day I signed up for a bike ride down the world’s most dangerous road. I had heard stories about this road, but I have been on many a dangerous road in my life and decided that I needed to find out for myself and what better way to do that but by hurling myself down it on a highly dubious mountain bike. The tourist office told me that it was entirely safe and that I shouldn’t worry, only people who didn’t know what they were doing had problems, so I left the office with a confident stride. That night I went to a bar for a couple of drinks to watch the basketball game and I ran into a couple of Americans. One had been living in La Paz for four months and his friends were just visiting. I casually mentioned my adventure for the next morning. My new friends started laughing. The one who had been living in La Paz, clapped my shoulder and said, “Good luck. Do you know how many people die on that road a year?� I shook my head. He smiled. When I left the bar (my friends advising me to visit a priest on my way to my hostal) my confident stride was replaced by a whimpering shuffle, but I was still determined to go through with it.

The next morning when I met the group my confidence was somewhat restored as there were 18 people in our group. I thought to myself, hey we’ll probably only lose a couple of us, so my chances are pretty good. The ride started at about 15,000 feet in the freezing cold mountains and descended to less than 5,000 in the sweltering jungle. As we started, the road was perfectly paved, had two nice wide lanes and even a guard rail in places. I thought, this is the most dangerous road in the world? Hah! They obviously never been to Guatamala. We made it down about a third of it, most of us riding about 45 mph or so, and it was easy. Then we stopped at a fork in the road for a break. One fork continued, not quite paved but with level gravel at a reasonable grade. The other seemed to be made with small boulders, was only one lane, had a drop off of at least 200 feet, and looked like it ran straight down. Of course this is the road that we were to take. As we started, I told myself “Easy now, let’s just stay towards the middle of the pack.” Unfortunately I’ve never been much of a middle of the pack kinda guy and was riding for the most part with the front guide. Throughout most of Bolivia drivers stay to the right (though this seems to be not much more than guideline rather than a law) for this part of the road people coming downhill had to stay to the left, the cliffside. As we whizzed down the dusty, rocky, wrist-shattering road, under waterfalls and next dizzying dropoffs, it was little disconcerting to see white crosses and memorials every 100 yards or so. When we stopped for breaks you could read the names and many of them weren’t Latino. We were about halfway down when my chain came off. I fixed it and got back going, behind the first group but in front of the second group. We were under strict orders to stay on the left-hand side of the road, but it’s a bit difficult when there’s an ever-present chance of plunging to your death on that side, but I was doing my best. However, as I rode fast to catch up to my group, I came around a corner somewhere in the middle of the road I found myself face to face with a large semi, blaring it’s horn. My first instinct was to swerve to the right, towards the cliff, but there was no room. I swerved back to the left and was able to straighten it out just in time to go over a small divit in the side of the road that some small minute landslide had made. As my tires bounced over the divet, I was actually able to look straight down a few hundred feet. It made me a tad bit shakey, but I eventually made it back with the group and to the bottom my forearms and fingers weary from applying the brake, but more or less unscathed.

Well, damn. This is already too long. I really intended on cactching everybody up today, but apparently that’s not going to happen. Anyway, everyone have a nice day, and I will try again in a week or so. Moe