After our biking difficult enroute to Machu Picchu we decided that we'd ensure we got good bikes for Death Road. Also we decided we'd book a hostel in advance so we wouldn't be forced to change rooms everyday. Good decisions except we didn't actually do any of that. We arrived in La Paz with no hostel booking, ended up having to stay in separate dorms and we booked death road for 8am the next morning with the hostel tour company. They showed us photos of their bikes and they looked decent.
Death road, also known as el camino de la muerte is a 43 mile stretch of road leading from La Paz to Coroico in the Yungas region of Bolivia. It is estimated that between 200 and 300 travelers have been killed on the road and as a result it was has been become known as death road. The danger is due to the extreme drop-offs of around 600 meters, the single lane road (no wider than 3.2 meters), the lack of guard rails and the varying weather conditions that hinder visibility. According to wikipedia at least 18 cyclists have died on the road since tours started operation in 1998.
Our tour didn't get off to the best of starts, the bus broke down on our way to the start point. We had an hour wait for a new bus, luckily the weather was good and we had a nice view of the city.
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| Waiting for a replacement bus |
Eventually another bus arrived and we got moving. We arrived to our starting point. The weather was pretty good. No wind, no rain, only a few clouds and some sunshine. All the signs for a good day.
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| Death Road Tour Group |
Soon we were biking down death road. The weather got progressively worse as we descended. Rain, mist, mud and freezing temperatures. Visibility was deteriorated and we got colder, wetter and muddier.
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| Low visibility |
The bikes weren't so bad, good tyres and decent suspension. The brakes were the problem and its a critical problem on death road. They kept failing, we constantly had to stop to have them repaired. We had two spare bikes but pretty soon they were replacing bikes that had brakes which could no longer be fixed.
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| Bike repairs enroute |
It was a great ride down although we couldn't really push the bikes hard due to the lack of brakes. By the end my brakes were beyond repair and the gears were busted too. My bike was replaced with one of the bikes that had already been replaced but at least I had working gears i.e. the chain didn't keep falling off and I had a back brake! It was a pity the weather was so bad as the views are supposed to be great. Athough the mist did provide the opportunity for some good photographs.
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| Zero visibility |
We all survived, no deaths just 5 very cold, wet and muddy people. No one told us to bring a change of clothes so we had a 3 hour bus journey back to La Paz in cold, wet and muddy clothes!
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| Death Road Survivors |
