13th Sept - Biking the world´s most dangerous road, Bolivia

Now this was something I was looking forward to. Today I was going to cycle the "World's Most Dangerous Road" - it used to be the main artery connecting La Paz and Yolasa but a new road was built in 2006 so the traffic has drastically reduced. Which is a good thing! The road is wide enough for one vehicle to fit safely but two passing is v v difficult in places. That'd be ok if it wasn't for the sheer cliffs (with no barriers - this is Bolivia after all) on one side. The cliffs continue for the entire length of the road. The drop is up to 600m in places. Back in the 90s, on average over 200 people per yr were dying. The biggest single accident involved a bus carrying over 100 people slipping off at the sheerest part. The latest death was a month ago. Last yr a backpacker (who was racing against his buddy) and a tour guide (who was taking a photo and stepped back just that one step too many) went over in separate incidents. People crash and break limbs every day. The road is actually easy enough to negotiate, it's just the penalty for getting it wrong is v v serious!

I couldn't wait! Downhill cycling is great craic and this would be 60km all downhill. Brilliant!

I met up with the tour at a local cafe at the ungodly of 7.30am and we set off soon after. Climbed up to over 4,000 metres altitude where it was absolutely freezing and put on all the gear. Lots of companies run this trip but I went with Gravity which was the most expensive but had the best reputation - as the girl in my hostel room put it: "I don't mind cutting corners on most tours - but ones that could kill me I want to be as safe as possible"... wise words indeed! This crowd provided everything for us - helmets, gloves, jackets, pants, food, water... really well organised. I looked good!

What followed was four hours of freewheeling savage craic!

There was one ape of an Aussie who went down with a plastic kangaroo strapped to his back:

Hilarious. No seriously.

One of the lads on the tour fell about 90 secs after start of Death Road and had to spend the rest of the day in the bus. Nightmare! Everyone else made it down no hassle and we ended up at this class place at the bottom. Monkey and bird sanctuary. Loads of monkeys around the place having the craic, jumping on our shoulders, taking food off us, just generally good times! got the bus back then and I arranged to meet up with the Gravity tour guides again the following day to go mountain biking down dedicated dirt tracks. Despite biking for years, I've never actually been proper mountain biking so that was something to really look forward to! Came back to hostel, watched Nadal win the US Open - then bed, I'd to be up at 7 to go mountain biking! Woo hoo!