Bolivia's Road of Death

Careening down the road at four thirds the speed of doom with nothing more than a metal contraption that I had no faith in whatsoever is a buzz that I am glad that I have experienced but also quite assuredly don't want to experience again. Like the sort of buzz you'd get throwing a brick at a police car.

Helen and I actually took the trip down the 'Death-Road' at a reasonably leisurely pace, but when you're on this particular stretch of road there are still times that even if you were travelling at the speed or an asthmatic snail carrying a wedding cake made of lead up Mount Vesuvius you would feel slightly nervous. 

Seeing the decaying hunks of twisted metal that once served as family cars scattered around 150 feet below you off a sheer cliff would put the willies up even the most devout nun.

The distance between Coroico and La Paz is only 70km, but the road to Coroico starts on a summit near La Paz, 4633 metres above sea level and heads down to 1700 meters above sea level. A 3300 metre descent. Not only is the road extremely steep, but it is also narrow, muddy, and has steep drops of over 1000 meters for most the trip down. There used to be cars coming up to meet you, but that stopped after 1999 when eight Israeli students fell off and got deaded.

There are multiple companies that run expeditions down the slope. We chose a company that fell at the cheaper end of the most expensive. For our money we got very good bikes, knee and elbow pads, full-face helmet and gloves. We also got water proof overalls, which was handy because for the first couple of hours we were essentially riding through clouds.

Some of the people we were with smashed it down the mountain, and some of them also smashed it over their handlebars a couple of times – but luckily not over the side of the cliff. 

There was some Australian bloke with all the gear but no idea who tried to buzz down the hill past everyone, wait for us to catch up, then do it again. He was an annoying twat.

Loz did his best to kill himself, but only succeeded in a few cuts and bruises.

Hel and I took it slower, but you could still feel the adrenaline pumping through your veins like exciting milk through a bendy cocktail straw. This, as it turned out, was quite lucky.

About a quarter of the way down Hel started to complain that her brakes were shit.

We stopped twice and got one of the chaps who follow you down behind in a big van to tighten them up. Just before we got to the three-quarters down spot, Hel finally stopped and asked the bloke to have a proper look as it was taking her longer and longer to come to a full stop. When the feller took the wheel off and had a look at the break disc, he showed it to us. 

It was about 1mm thick when it should have been about two pound coins thick.

Helen had just done the death road without brakes.

When we got to the end we arrived at a hotel in the middle of nowhere and enjoyed a sort of shambolic buffet, everyone was pretty tired so we just lounged around an algae filled pool. The kiwis had arranged to stay there that evening and move on from there, so we made our rather sad goodbyes and trudged back into the van to go back to La Paz.