One of the things that many backpackers like tick off the list in South America is the World's Most Dangerous Road in La Paz, Bolivia. I hadn't planned on doing it, but as we got closer I somehow convinced myself that it was a good idea. So we booked it in!
The ride started with a couple of easy sections on a paved road prior to reaching the famous 'Death Road'. Unfortunately our group had a casualty in these early stages with a young nurse losing control of her bike and breaking her collarbone. It was not a sight you wanted to see at the start of the day like this. Luckily, it was the first and last injury.
The World's Most Dangerous Road (WMDR) is a road connecting La Paz to the Coca growing region of Coroico, it was built in the 1930's when Coca Cola sourced Coca from this region. It got its infamous name and international recognition when the Inter-American Development Bank dubbed it the WMDR in 1995. It is estimated that 200 to 300 people died on the road per annum when it was in peak use. Today, it is really only used by gringo tourists, like us, on mountain bikes as a new safer road was built in 2006 which, luckily, the cars, buses and trucks stick to.
After the ride James and I decided we needed more adrenalin pumping so we opted to do the zip lines across the valley. The highest one being 200 metres above the valley floor. This was great fun and actually relieved the stress I had from doing the ride.
Getting ready for take off
After zip lining we were ready for lunch, which was at a local animal refuge. We ate our lunch to the sounds of monkeys scurrying over the roof and squawking Macaus. We decided to stay the night here with a few of the other riders and enjoyed some crazy moments with the animals.
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