They Yungas Road is one of the few roads which connects La Paz to the Yungas región of Northern Bolivia. It is a narrow, windy road on the side of a mountain with very steep drop offs. During the rainy season it is even more dangerous, and during parts of the ride you literally pass through waterfalls. Ideally the road should not be driven on (haha), one-way traffic would probably be OK, but the fact that this is a two-way road makes it all the more insane.

They don’t call the Yungas Road the Death Road for nothing… before the road was mostly closed off to road traffic they estimated that about 200-300 people died on it per year. Imagine knowingly riding a road where someone died basically every day. That’s wild, and that’s also why so many thrill seekers come to cycle down the road, and it’s exactly why I wanted to do it, too.

Since I have no gear of my own I decided to do the trip through a company called Altitude, which was recommended to me by some tour guide friends in Cusco. I found them to be very professional with good equipment.

We met at like 7:30am at my hotel and we drove to the starting point… some lake at about 4,650 meters (15,256 feet) high. We got some coffee and tried out our equipment which included knee and elbow pads, proper helmet and cycle tops and bottoms. We got out bikes and tried them out for a few minutes before beginning the first part of our trip…

Part 1: The first part lasted about 30 minutes or so and was all on paved road. The road was full of traffic with people travelling over the Easter weekend. It started out with nice weather and then began to rain, then hail a little bit. At times it was actually pretty hard to see, but given the solid equipment and paved roads it was still possible to get pretty fast down the road, which I did : ) This part ended when we got to the entrance to the Yungas Road and had to pay a tiny entrance fee. We get in our vans and drove a little it to where the real fun part of the trip would begin…

Part 2: Here the paved roads disappeared and the road became narrower, windier, and wilder. The rain, however, did not stop so we peddled on in the wet. One of the other riders on my trip was a BMXer from France and he was a delightful lunatic, jumping his bike all over the place and taking corners very quickly. I’m convinced that this led to a little friendly rivalry between the main guide and the BMXer as our group, without question, was one of the fastest groups going down the mountain.

Along the way I passed cars, lots of other bikers, rode through waterfalls, stopped to take a peak over the edge, and rode my heart out. It did not take long to get comfortable on the bike and gain confidence on it. It was difficult, however, with the rain. There were times when I couldn’t see anything and was squinting my way down. Visibility on the road itself was fine, but we did not really see any of the panoramic landscape like you might see in more classic photos of the trip.

The whole trip lasted maybe 3 hours and 30 minutes, and for 3 hours and 28 minutes of the trip I held my own and kept pace with the guide and that French BMXer… but, I think I got a little too confident (cocky) and about 2 minutes before finishing the trip I took a corner way too fast and couldn’t keep her under control. I knew I was going down and distinctly remember my last words being “Ah shit!”. I will try to think of something more eloquent next time, but thankfully I was not seriously hurt. I was totally fine and finished the trip with a big smile on my face. To be honest I think that was mostly the adrenaline kicking is as about 2 days later (seriously, 2 days) my right ribcage started hurting a bit. Still, it was worth it to crush it down the mountain and, at the end of the day, it could have been a lot worse. I did have two other OH SHIT moments on the trip: once a car cut me off and got way too close, and there was a second corner where I came in a little hot but held it together.

The trip ended with a stop to a nearby hotel to shower, eat and chill before the 3 hour ride back to La Paz. The shower was a nice touch as we were all super gross after riding in the rain and mud all day.

I highly recommend anyone do this trip. I thought it was going to be much scarier than it was, but it was absolutely manageable. Adrenaline junkies (dumb people) like me will intentionally make the trip more risky, but I honestly believe than anyone can do it at their own pace… and they should do it!

See you at the next adventure…

Bibliography

1. “Yungas Road.”Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 03 Apr. 2016.