One of the “must do” excursions while you’re in La Paz is cycling down the World’s Most Dangerous Road. The Death Road used to be a major highway over the Andes linking La Paz with Bolivia’s Amazon Basin and wasn’t uncommon for cars/buses/bicycles to plummet down cliffs due to the very narrow road and sharp bends. Today the route has been replaced by a modern (and much safer) highway so the Death Road is primarily used by a handful of locals and tourists on bikes.
Working at the Wildrover came with another perk – a free day cycling the Death Road with Gravity Assisted Mountain Biking. Gravity are an awesome company – fantastic bikes, experienced and friendly guides, and above all very safe! And they give you a CD at the end of the day with heaps of photos so most of the snaps I’ve posted can be credited to them.
We were lucky to get out of La Paz on the Wednesday morning of our ride as a huge strike meant road blocks and limited access to and from the city. At an altitude of 4700 metres we began the decent on a nice paved road through snowy mountains. I loved this part! The second part of the journey was the Death Road itself and this is on an unpaved gravel road. I have no experience at mountain biking and was absolutely petrified for most of the way down, riding very slowly and trailing behind everyone else in my group. But it was still awesome and at least when you’re travelling slowly you can be fairly certain you won’t go over the edge. Ryan, on the other hand, had no fear, cycling as fast as he could for most of the way down. On one of the last bends he hit a pile of gravel and came off, scratching himself up pretty bad. He survived but finished the journey in the van – as a wise tortoise once said “slow and steady wins the race”. The day wrapped up at an altitude of 1200 metres with lunch and beers at the La Senda Verde, a not-for-profit monkey and wildlife sanctuary.
Chasing the Cheese 