July 6, 2015

The days starts out a complete shit show. We hit up a local restaurant because they have a pretty good buffet for $5. We got our money’s worth as we loaded up our bellies and our bags. Getting out of town was where the “fun” begins. It took nearly 90 minutes just to get

out of town. None of the roads in La Paz are parallel or have any logical layout but rather are some version of a hobbit’s meandering. We knew we had to go west, but that required going down some hills and up MANY others…in morning rush hour. We climbed nearly 2000 ft before we ever left La Paz. It felt like riding up and down Flagstaff in Boulder 3-4 times, on a 75lb bike, with cars, buses, people, dogs…everywhere. Finally we get on the correct road to leave town…and it’s steep…and long. I wish I had more gears.  This road joined into the main highway leading to the Yungas. We eventually climbed up to over 15K feet and stayed there for nearly 2 hours..and yet the peaks surrounding us looked down sternly, taunting us with a snicker, saying “if you think that was tough, I’ve got a little something more for you”. They are over 20K feet. Big.  I’ve never seen mountains this large. After several hours, we reach a gate with probably 50 cars and buses lined up. We are at the high point of the pass.  They are metering traffic. We simply roll through and have the entire descent to ourselves. Bikes win. The descent toward the death road is fast and beautiful. Imagine rolling down hill for an hour, on a newly paved road, with no cars or people anywhere with only 20k ft peaks to gaze and and lose yourself in.  After that hour, we come upon a traffic jam. A rock slide has closed the road and no cars can pass in ether direction. We simply roll through.  Bikes win again. Shortly thereafter, we see the turnoff, clearly sign posted for the “Death Road”. This road is written up everywhere as the most dangerous road on Earth. After dropping into it, we can see why. It is at its best point, 1 car width wide of broken, eroded dirt “road”.  It is 30 km, with steep descents, switch backs, and sheer drop offs. We descend from 9000 ft to 3000 ft and go from high mountains to jungle. If you go over the edge, in some places you can fall 1000 ft before you hit anything…not even a roll…a free fall.   It is truly daunting.  Bolivia has since built the new highway to connect Coroico so now this road is largely free of anybody, outside the occasional tour group. We descend the road for nearly 4 hours, stopping frequently to take photos. Even the photos I took are insulting to the actual scenery.

When we reach the bottom, we are told that we must climb 7km to the town of Coroico where we will sleep for the night before reversing course and climbing out the next day.   We think we can do this in maybe an hour. However, the road is a Bolivian version of cobble stones, steep and bumpy, and we run out of daylight (and legs). I stop to pull out my bike light in hopes the occasional car that comes barreling down the road will see us. We climb over 90 minutes in total, most of them in the dark, on a narrow road, with the occasional car coming down at us. I wasn’t scared, but I wasn’t far off. Bolivian drivers are known to be terrible. We finally arrive in Corioco and find a hostal for $8USD. It is basic for sure. 3 sorta clean beds and a community bathroom with barely luke warm water for a shower.  Ah…the showers in Bolivia.  They have an “on demand” electric head that is supposed to heat the water.  In theory this works.  However, this shower really is not heating the water and on top of that, the wires that are powering the on demand shower head are not insulated.  Remember that time you were dead tired after riding your bike all day in Bolivia and took a cold shower with frequent electric shocks?  Ah…good times…good times.  We head out for a quick dinner, retire by 1030, and fall asleep to calming sounds of barking dogs, and trucks and motos zooming by all night. I’m so shattered that I barely notice.  Welcome to South America.  Tomorrow will be a LONG day.

Leaving La Paz on the route to the Death Road

Pretty hard to miss the turn off

Sadly the photo does not capture the bottom.  Scary far

Riding into the abyss

Would not be the first time, I’m sure.  My apologies to Taylor’s mom

Finally popped out of the clouds to THIS