The Death Road

The name alone inspires fear. The stomach churns, the legs start to fail, dizziness makes the room spin. It is a warning. Don't come down or else. That, or it makes the heart pump with anticipation of the challenge as it encourages you, nay, begs you to plunge down it, to defy its hefty title as you grip your bike's handle bars and point your bike downhill. Most can guess, to my mother's dismay, that "The World's Most Dangerous Road," or "The Death Road," had the second effect on me.

(more pictures)

What's in a name?
The name is not entirely underserved. It is narrow and strewn with loose gravel, whose right shoulder is a steep mountain face and whose left side is a sheer cliff of an average of two to three hundred meters. It ain't no cake walk, and it has claimed the most lives of any road on record. That said, there are far more dangerous roads still in use in Bolivia and Peru, and because of the new installation of a paved and safer alternative route, The Death Road sees far less traffic than it used too. Still, more than 13 tourists have died on it since 2001, a couple in the last couple weeks, but this has not deterred the hundreds if not thousands of tourists every year that brave its winding curves as it plunges into the Bolvian low country in one of the most stunning settings imaginable. It is one of the primary tourists attractions of La Paz.

So is it really that dangerous? I would say no. What it really comes down to is potential. We have all fallen off our bikes (some more spectacularly than others; point and case to the right). We knew there might be pain or tears or blood, but despite this we still got on to take ride. Our parents still sent us out to pedal down the road. The only difference between a normal day out on the bike and going down the "World's Most Dangerous Road" is this: a normal day on the bike usually does not contain, within all its many possibilities of disaster, the potential outcome of falling off your bike and then plummeting over a 1ooo foot cliff, all the while enjoying what will probably be one of the most amazing views you will witness in your life (especially given that it only has a few seconds left to be carried out). So that is what it comes down to. Potential.

Title: "Potential"

Title: "Your Last View"

The (Death) Ride

I went hurtling down the Death Road with some friends I met in Santa Cruz. Sam, another typical guy, was all for the danger and adventure. Amanda, however, was not. At one point tears were falling, and though she admitted later she was glad she did it, in the same breath stated she was also glad it was over. But she was a trooper and made it down in one piece, even smiling a bit at the end.

The group, all of which survived

A little encouragement from the guide

The ride starts above 4000m on tarmac and covers about 64 km in total. The tarmac section is fun because the cliff-side drops are less intense and you can really lean into the curves when you get your speed up. The next section is the gravel road with the spectacular drops, with the loose terrain adding to that potential for disaster I was talking about. At first the clouds obscured our view of the drop, making it not too bad. Out of sight, out of mind. But after dropping down below the clouds we had an open view of that 300m plunge, and you felt the heart sink in your chest and prayed your pants weren't going to get wet when you chanced a glance over the side.

"Look, Mom, I got this close to the edge!"

Needless to say, it was a day full of adrenaline, aprhensive excitement, and joyous fear. I survived The Death Road, and even got a t-shirt to prove it.