Seattle to Ushuaia

The Yungas road in Bolivia has many names.  The locals refer to it as “El Camino de la Muerte”, while English speakers call it the Highway of Death, or Death Road.  Take your pick, I guess.  Wikipedia says that in 1995 the Inter-American Development Bank gave it the title of the “world’s most dangerous road” due to the extremely high number of deaths which occurred every year on the ~60KM stretch between La Paz and Coroico.  At times, barely nine feet of slippery, wet dirt separate the solid wall of rock on your left from the 2000 foot drop on your right.  The opportunity to ride this famous highway was one of the major factors which motivated me to do this trip, and this is that story.

An ominous sign.

As it turns out, the Bolivian Government caught on a while ago to the fact that the Yungas road was so crazy dangerous, so they built a more modern (paved) highway that runs parallel to the highway of death.  The new route was completed in 2006, and now almost all of the traffic between La Paz and the Yungas Basin travels over it.  In fact, a long section of the original highway leading out from La Paz is now paved, but the other 40KM of the extremely dangerous route remains an option for the thrill-seekers and the foolhardy.  The original section now caters mostly to adventure tourism and is extremely popular with mountain bikers looking for the ultimate ride.  Ironically, this has made it much safer – when you only have bicyclists to contend with, and no speeding buses or overloaded trucks, the danger factor goes way down.

Even the new, more safe route is not without its dangers.

The Yungas road begins in La Paz and quickly climbs to a breath-sapping 15000 feet.  I had been worried about the weather for this ride, since January sits smack dab in the middle of Bolivia’s rainy season and heavy rains would turn the already tricky dirt road into a much more dangerous beast, but I left my hotel in the late morning with the sun shining, and thankfully the weather held until I made it back to La Paz in the afternoon.  But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Like I said, the road leaves La Paz and immediately shoots up and over an Andean mountain pass.  At the cusp of this pass I was met by a thick wall of fog which replaced my lovely clear weather, and I plunged into the cold dampness, ever alert for brakelights ahead of me or the headlights of a maniac crazy enough to pass somebody.  The fog (at this altitude, is it just considered clouds?) lasted for nearly an hour.  It wasn’t until the road dropped far enough into the Yungas Basin and I suddenly found myself below the cloud cover that I began to feel warm again.  I have to say that while I’ve been very happy with my FirstGear TPG Overpants, and my TourMaster rain shell, I’ve yet to find a pair of gloves that can keep my hands warm in wet weather for more than 15 minutes.  If you have any suggestions, I’d love to hear them.

I missed the turnoff for the Highway of Death (it’s not marked, but you’ll find it at 16°17’14″ S by 67°49’51″ W) and ended up taking the paved road all the way down to Coroico, where a woman pointed me towards the start of the road, and off I went.

At the base of the Yungas Road. Tired groups of mountain bikers would regularly pour out of the mouth of the road.

This turned out to be for the better.  The Yungas Road has some unique rules which generally favor the driver going uphill.  The downhill driver is supposed to drive on the left side of the road (closest to the cliff edge) so they can stick their head out their window and eyeball how close their tires are to going over.  The uphill driver also has the right-of-way, which means the downhill driver must back up if necessary; backing up is a very dangerous process on this road, so you want to avoid it if at all possible.

Five minutes into the ride I found a small stream flowing right across the road. Crossing it wasn't a problem, but there wasn't a huge cliff here!

I rode onwards as the highway of death steadily rose up through the jungle.  I passed lots of mountain bikers; some looked confident, while others were obviously scared out of their wits – a sign of good things to come!

Waterfalls were a regular sight this side of the Andes, but this was the first time I'd had to ride through one.

I don’t have much more to say about the ride itself, so in a moment I’ll shut up and let the pictures talk.  I will say that the scenery was some of the most lush and verdant I’d ever seen, and riding so close to such enormous cliffs definitely got my adrenaline going.  The only motor vehicles that I met going the other way were a few motorcycles and some support vehicles for the mountain bikers, and these encounters were easy enough to negotiate.  They’d undoubtedly be trickier if I were driving a car or something wide, but with a motorcycle there’s almost always room to pull over.

Ok, on to the pictures.

I got a little wet while going through this section. Stopping for pictures didn't help!

This was the only bridge in the entire length of the Yungas road.

Stay away from the edge!

One of the taller drops on the Yungas Road. It's amazing that plants can even grow on such a steep incline!

A close-up of the previous photo. The red dirt on the road here was wet and very slick - a bad combination even without the 2000 foot cliff just one mistake away.

A section of the Yungas Road as it winds down the mountainside.

This was a really great experience. Now I get to check this off my bucket list!

The ride up the Yungas Highway of Death took about three hours in total – mostly because I kept stopping every five minutes to snap a photo of some new amazing sight.  From a technical perspective, it’s not a very challenging ride.  The road surface is kept relatively smooth, and when I went there was only water over the road in a few places.  There’s no doubt that this changes during a heavy rain, but I was lucky.  I definitely recommend this road to all you other adventure riders out there!

I still had five hours of daylight left when I finished the ride, and I briefly considered doubling back and riding the Yungas in the other direction, but caution overrode my propensity to do stupid shit for once and I decided against it.  When the skies opened up an hour later and the heaviest rain I’d yet experienced in Bolivia fell, I thanked whatever part of me it was that voted to not push my luck.

The paved road wasn't completely boring, anyways.

And that’s the story of how I rode the most dangerous road in the world and survived to type it all up for your reading pleasure.  Look for the next issue to come which will cover my trip to the incredible Salar de Uyuni!

This entry was posted on January 31, 2010 at 9:02 pm and is filed under Motorcycle Ride.

Tags: bolivia, natural wonder, pictures