Another Death on the World’s Worst Road

Another tragic death on the worlds worst road

I recently received news from a friend in Bolivia that one of her travelling mates had been killed while cycling down the ‘death’ road in Bolivia.  For those unfamiliar with this stretch of road and its well deserved title, its a road that winds down from Bolivia’s capital La Paz, to the small resort town of Corico and then into the Amazon basin. At its best you could call it a road, at worst its nothing more than a one lane goat track with no railings and thousand foot cliffs to drop off.  Before a bypass was built recently over 250 people a year did just that.  You can see the evidence of mangled buses and cars through the mist below the road.

Despite the new bypass reducing traffic along the road the risks are still there, as highlighted by the continually high road toll and the deaths of a number of travellers on orgainsed cycling tours.

This ride down the ‘death’ road has become a well entrenched part of the backpacking route through South America.  It kind of begs the question: Why?

When travelling away from home people tend to take a different view of risk.  Call it the thrill of being far removed from responsibility or people telling you NO, travellers will always put themselves in positions that they would usually avoid at home. Sometimes you just need to get somewhere on a dodgy bus, sometimes you make decisions to do things that might be better avoided.

Cycling the death road is as good an example of this as any.  I wonder if there was an Australian stretch of road so monumentally poor that 250 people a year were dying if people would even choose to drive along it, let alone cycle down the bloody thing? Yes we would probably fix the road, and liability would prohibit the tours, but you can see what I mean.

Aside from the risk there is something kind of morbid about taking a thrill in riding down a road where so many people have, and continue, to be killed.

The news from Bolivia has brought back memories of my experience there.  I was almost killed in a bus crash further down the same road.  I wrote about it here.

It’s fair to say that that the decision to to this ride might be an ill informed one, but a bit of risk will never stop backpackers when they are away from home.  Please just consider the history of the place before getting on the bike!

An article on the recent tragedy: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1161979.html

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Category: Cautionary tales, South America, Travel Blog