A three hour drive in a cramped van out of La Paz bought us to the start point of the infamous death road bike tour, a 60km mountain bike ride down hill on what was one of the most dangerous roads in the world. Kitted out in all the gear required to protect you from hitting the ground or flying off the side of a cliff we began on the first 20km stretch of road.
The first part of the ride is on a sealed stretch of road. An easy and fun downhill cruise through a valley past some great views. There are cars to battle but they generally honk to let you know they are passing and pass by with no problems.
A few in the group suffered flat tyres but after an hour or so we all jumped back on the bus to drive to the start of the real ‘death road’.
Looking across at the road we would be lying if we said we weren’t a bit nervous. At first glance it was a narrow dirt road with no railings and a very steep drop off the edge. There is an alternative road these days for cars, but due to a landslide that occurred earlier in the day the cars were re directed to the very narrow road we were about to ride down.
To my surprise it ended up not being as scary as the name makes it out to be. In saying that, we didn’t fly as fast as we could down the road like some of the other groups and except for one bump Brett flew over and almost stacked it we didn’t come to close to falling over the steep drop into the valley.
Three hours later, covered in dust we arrived at the end of the trail. We had our buffet lunch and a few beers before the long bus ride back to La Paz and felt pretty happy we survived the death road.
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