The Worlds Most Dangerous Road

Explanaition: The North Yungas Road (also Grove's Road, Coroico Road, Camino de las Yungas, El Camino de la Muerte, Road of Death, and Death Road) is a 61 to 69 km road (depending on source) leading from La Paz to Coroico, 56 km (35 miles) northeast of La Paz in the Yungas region of Bolivia. It is legendary for its extreme danger and in 1995 the Inter-American Development Bank christened it as the "world's most dangerous road".^[1] One estimate is that 200-300 travelers were killed yearly along the road.^[1] The road includes crosses marking many of the spots where such vehicles have fallen.

A South Yungas Road (also Chulumani Road) exists that connects La Paz to Chulumani, 64 km (40 miles) east of La Paz, and is considered to be nearly as dangerous as the north road.

The road was built in the 1930s during the Chaco War by Paraguayan prisoners. It is one of the few routes that connects the Amazon rainforest region of northern Bolivia, or Yungas, to its capital city. Upon leaving La Paz, the road first ascends to around 5 km, before descending to 330 m (1079 ft), transiting quickly from cool altiplano terrain to rainforest as it winds through very steep hillsides and atop cliffs.

Because of the extreme dropoffs of at least 600 meters (1,969 ft), single-lane width — most of the road no wider than 3.2 meters (10.5 ft) — and lack of guard rails, the road is extremely dangerous. Further still, rain and fog can make visibility precarious, the road surface muddy, and loosen rocks from the hillsides above.^[2]

One of the local road rules specifies that the downhill driver never has the right of way and must move to the outer edge of the road. This forces fast vehicles to stop so that passing can be negotiated safely. Also, vehicles drive on the left, as opposed to the right like the rest of Bolivia. This gives the driver in a left-hand-drive vehicle a better view over their outside wheel, making passing safer.

On July 24, 1983, a bus veered off the Yungas Road and into a canyon, killing more than 100 passengers in what is said to be Bolivia's worst road accident

WTF was i thinking. Somehow in the midst of travelling I forget that I have one fear in life: Heights. This was not an issue for me when paying BS600 for my Gravity lead expedition down the worlds most dangerous road.

We all arrived early on the morning of the 18th and packed up our bus for our day trip. The weather was cold and when we reached the the starting point of our mountain bike tour it was pouring with rain. Our guide Mike ( Swedish) explained to us the general rules that needed to be followed and more or less how the tour was going to unfold. The total cycle was 60 kms basically downhill and consisted of both tar but mostly gravel. Our group consisted of around 10 people and we were followed by a support bus.

Once we completed the tar road of the tour we hit gravel. It was pretty terrifying. We road along cliff drops of up to 100m in parts and along roads 3m wide. The total cycle taking 6 hours in total. I cant really explain how i was feeling cause i was riding on adrenalin the whole way. Fatality stories were explained to us before we left which just added to my nausea. Apart from the above it was the most exciting adventure tour i have done to date and so well worth the experience.

See the link below for a full photo experience of the tour.

The Worlds Most dangerous road picture show