Surviving the World´s Most Dangerous Road

We have just completed the ´Calle del Muerte´ or ´Road of Death´ which is the world´s most dangerous road and the route is from La Paz to Brazil. More people die on this road than any other in the world, it´s worth noting that the second most dangerous is the road into Bagdad, so we are off to Iraq next to try that! The deaths are mainly caused by drunk drivers, tired drivers (they work 48 hour shifts) or passenger buses crashing into other vehicles on the blind bends on the single, dirt track, then going over the 500m sheer drop at the edge of the barrier-less road. That´s why we decided to go down on mountain bikes! It was a great 67km down a 3,000m desent on dangerous dirt road. We paid a high price to go with the best company and had great bikes, cool guides, a t-shirt and lots of safety talks on the way down. The only downer was that we had to come back to La Paz on the bus, up the same road - which was more terrorising then the bike ride down!

The road is the most dangerous simply from the number of deaths per year and some people have lost relatives or entire families. At one time a bus went over and an entire community were lost. Now, those who have lost loved ones stand as ´human traffic lights´on the corners where the accidents have happened. The show red or green flags to indicate if traffic is coming and truely they´re a godsend, however they´re not on all the bends and don´t man the roads during the night, so you´re reliant on sounding your horn and praying that nothing is coming! There really were some sad stories of accidents, most easily avoidable as there is a new road that has been built, but it´s not open yet. Its taken 12 years to build to date and so far is not finished, mainly due to corruption - that´s Bolivia!

The highlight of the trip was Stu being attacked by a cute, little spider monkey who jumped on his head when we were chilling out after the trip with beer. Unfortunately I was a bit slow with the camera and didn´t catch the cheeky, little, blighter trying to bite Stu´s ear lobes off. He was cute mind… at least he didn’t have claws.