Up early this morning ready for our adventure to the worlds most deadliest road. Yes, thats right we were venturing to “Death Road” in Bolivia, but instead of driving along this deadly road we rode down it on mountain bikes! Our days activities were to ride 64km downhill and drop over 3500m in altitude... and try not to fall off the cliff that is the edge of the road.
The drive to our start point was very scenic but did worry us a little as the higher we went the more snow there was on the edges of the road and on the mountains. The thought of riding through ice was not all that nice... but at least it wasn’t raining like it was last night!
We reached our start point, received our final briefing from our guide and set off. The first section was 22km and actually part of the new road so was sealed. It was a beautiful ride and thankfully, although the ambient temperature was below freezing, there was no ice on the road. The second section was the true ‘Death Road’. It was 34km of downhill dirt road that is, in parts, way too narrow for 2 cars to pass each other. It was a little scary at times but mostly just full of absolutely spectacular scenery. Thankfully since the building of the new road approximately 4yrs ago the amount of vehicle traffic on the old road, which is the ‘Death Road’, consists almost entirely of support vehicles for the mountain bikes and tourists who decide it is a good idea to drive the road... silly! The third section is still the old road but is slightly wider and has a couple of flat sections. We finished in a small village at a very low and warm 1200m altitude and enjoyed a nice cold beer!
Our fantastic day was topped off with a great dinner at an English Pub... yes there is one almost everywhere! We also bid farewell to 2 of our group members tonight as their tour finished which left just 5 of us.
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