The world´s most dangerous road

For a bit of a thrill we decided to go on one of the downhill mountain bike tours down the world´s most dangerous road. Apparently, about 400 people used to die each year along a 40 km stretch of this one-lane road from La Paz to Coroico, which is about the same as NZ´s annual road toll. The Bolivian government opened an alternative route last year, so the old route (which we mountain biked down) has pretty much no traffic and so is actually a relatively safe bike ride. At places along the road are little makeshift shelters that apparently were used by the friends and relatives of the thousands of people who have been killed on the road to shelter in while directing traffic, unpaid, on some of the worst corners – they survived on food and money given to them by drivers of trucks.

We went with about 10 other gringos (most of which were good sorts, in fact all were except of one whining kiwi). It was fairly hair raising 60 ks but nearly all of us made the journey without incident - one of the Irish lads took a spill, but came up with minimal blood loss. We even made to stop to take a few shots of some condors.

At the end of the descent we decided to stay at hostal at the bottom of the valley which was also an animal refuge. They seemed pretty legit and had taken all sorts of animals in with various sad tales – including four different types of monkeys, some macaws, other parrots, a boa constrictor, a donkey, and even an ocelot kitten whose parents were killed for their skins. Unfortunately one of the monkeys and I had a disagreement, things got physical and I got bitten on the back of the neck (I tried to bite back, but missed). I think it had attachment issues – as everything was sweet as it climbed up my leg and sat behind my neck and things only got heated when I tried to kick her off. Erin thought it was a bit comical, that is, until the ocelot “nailed” her across the hand and tried to jump down her throat. Luckily, both perpetrators had been given their shots (at least that´s what we were told…. twich twich).

Getting kitted up at the top of the road









A reasonably standard corner...



The wildlife refuge where we stayed at the end of the cycle


This photo is of the 1 second that this orphaned ocelot kitten wasn´t biting us as hard as it could...



And when it was...


Che managed to make friends with the monkey that bit his neck earlier in the day...


And then it was love....


We shared breakfast with these guys, literally, inthe case ofthe yellow one, which stole our bread with the speed of lightening!