Death Road
Wednesday, 23rd January 2008 by James Turnbull
Yungus Road, or "Death Road" as it is known to the locals, has often been described as the most dangerous road in the world.
Running from Bolivia's capital La Paz into a rainforest region known as the Yungas, the road has no barrier to the edge, and the two-way traffic shares a space just 12ft wide.
From the aerial shots, the road looks relatively safe as it casually winds through the trees. But load up the terrain layer in Google Earth, and you'll see scary hairpin bends leading around the edge of a cliff face.
In fact, it seems "Death Road" is a very suitable nickname, as it's estimated between 200 and 300 people die in this area each year!
Notoriety hasn't helped the death toll here, as thrill-seeking tourists now visit the area just to drive on the road and it's even popular with mountain biking lunatics.
More information and pictures on BBC, Wikipedia and Bolivian Geographic
Thanks: nova72
“Notoriety hasn’t helped the death tool here, as thrill-seeking tourists now visit the area just to drive on the road and it’s even popular with mountain biking lunatics.”
Nothing like a self fulfilling prophecy. Seems like a little bit of regulation would go a long way here. I would assume at 69 km, the road could be traversed by a convoy of vehicles in two hours. So, for two hours all traffic goes one way, then the following two hours it goes the other. Probably a major inconvenience, but death is much bigger.
The old Death Road is now only used by some trucks and “mountain biking lunatics” so there are no more deaths (or at least far less than before). Cars and buses take the new road (the one on the left in GM) which opened about a year ago. Anyway, the mountain bike “tour” is REALLY impressive and actually kind of safe since the cars take the new road.
I’ve love to mountain biking down that.
horay my first post! thanks guys.
actually most vehicles still perfer to use the original Yungas Road because the waterfalls act as a natural coolant to the delapadated trucks and the death toll still stays between 200 and 300 a year
The “new” road is only partially completed. So in essence you still are required to used the old delapadated one-lane unsafe mountain road. To make matters worse, negotiating one lane traffic AT BEST down hill you are trying to look for bicycles??? That’s lunacy! There are some volunteers from local villages that stand on the mountain for tips that attempt to control traffic w/ hand signs on the blind curves. They are some brave yet helpful souls.