The North Yungas Road, also known as the Death Road, is a 64-kilometer (40-mile) road that connects the Bolivian capital of La Paz to the town of Coroico. The road was built in the 1930s by Paraguayan prisoners of war from the Chaco War. It is a narrow, winding road with steep drops, and as a result, it was once considered as one of the most dangerous roads in the world. In 1995, it was estimated that 200 to 300 people were killed on the road each year. After they opened a new highway between La Paz and Coroico, the “Death Road” is closed for busses and trucks, and only rarely will you see cars there… It is mainly used by crazy mountain bikers going downhill to experience the thrill of riding this road, so that’s what I did 🙂
But what is it that makes it tricky and dangerous? It’s not that it’s very steep; I did worst downhills… In my case, it was also not the weather… It might be more challenging if it’s either snowing or 40 degrees.
Two things that make it really hard:
- The bad condition of the bikes, so-called “top Bolivian quality”. In my case, only the brakes were good. The bike was too small, and the front suspension was not working at all. So, a recommendation from my side is to wait to book it online. Walk in the city of La Paz and check the local providers. Check the bikes in their office before you book it. I saw other tours on the road with similar bikes but also better bikes.
- The knowledge of, “If I fall, I fall 600m”! And yes, you are not allowed to lose concentration for a second. The street has almost no barriers, so if you miss your point to break, it will go down FAAAAR…. One lousy point from my agency again: two guides have been with us, one with the fastest cyclers and one with the slowest. I was neither, so I was in the middle of the group, sometimes wholly alone for up to 20 minutes. If I had fallen down the cliff, I would still be lying there because no one would know where I had fallen.
That is how the whole experience looks like:
The whole trip started at 4600m above sea level. The first ~40 minutes is a real road you share with trucks and cars. This 18km part is fast; you can easily go beyond 50km/h if you trust your bike.
For convenience, after 40 minutes and reaching 3200m above sea level, we put our bikes back into the bus to drive up again (skipping 6 kilometers uphill). 15 minutes later, we reached the real beginning of the Death Road.
(You will see this sign at both ends of the road as I have witnessed cyclists going UPHILL!)
After the introduction of the basic rules on the death road, the descent started. Due to many breaks, extra activities like zip lining between two hills, and tons of pictures we had to make, it took us about 4 hours to get down.
This graph shows the 31km of the Death Road. The darker the color is, the slower it was. You can see that the beginning was slow, mainly due to bad road conditions. The conditions got much better after ⅔ of the track. Therefore, we got much faster in the end.
After reaching the bottom at 1200 meters above sea level, we got some lovely food and returned to the bus again. It took us almost 4 hours to get back to La Paz. During that time, we took a nap and looked at the pictures we made. All in all, I enjoyed that trip, even with the lousy bike conditions.
You can also walk for those who want to experience the Death Road but are unwilling to cycle or drive down. The bike agencies are also selling tickets for “walker”. They will drop you at the same spot, and you can walk down.
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