Bucket List / Adventure Travel Goals
Cycle The Death Road
Ticked off in November 2015
A morning freewheeling from Andean snow to steamy jungle, on a cliff-edge road once called the deadliest on Earth.
The adventure
The ride starts at La Cumbre, a windswept pass at about 4,650 metres above La Paz, where you pull on gloves against the cold and look out over snow-dusted peaks. Before long you've left the tarmac for a single-lane gravel track cut into the side of the Yungas, with rock on one side and a drop of hundreds of metres on the other.
As you descend, the air thickens and warms, scrub gives way to cloud forest, and waterfalls splash straight across the road. Crosses and memorials mark the bends where trucks and buses once went over the edge, back when this was the main route to Coroico and earned its title as the world's most dangerous road. A new highway carries the traffic today, but the drops are just as real. By the bottom you're in sub-tropical heat, around 3,500 metres lower, covered in dust and grinning.
Why it’s epic
- A descent of about 3,500 metres in roughly 60 kilometres, from high Andean pass to jungle.
- Riding the road the Inter-American Development Bank once named the most dangerous in the world.
- Waterfalls that pour directly across the track.
- Going from icy mountain air to sub-tropical heat in a single morning.
What it is
The North Yungas Road drops about 3,500 metres from La Paz to Coroico and was once called the world's most dangerous road.
How to do it
Book a mountain-bike tour in La Paz with a reputable company that provides good bikes and safety gear.
Top tip
Pay more for a company with well-maintained bikes; brakes matter here.
Need to know
- Choose an operator with full-suspension bikes, hydraulic disc brakes and trained guides; the cheapest tours cut corners.
- Spend a few days in La Paz first to adjust to the altitude, as the start is at about 4,650 metres.
- Unusually, traffic on the old road keeps left, which puts downhill riders on the cliff edge, so listen closely to your guide.
- Check that your travel insurance covers mountain biking.
Plan this trip
- Rough cost
- Under £750 per person, including flights from the UK
- Time needed
- 1 day
- Best time to go
- May to October
- Fly into
- LPB airport
Even the best operators charge modest prices, and paying a little extra for good bikes and brakes is money well spent.
Do it yourself
- Tours and ticketsGetYourGuide
- FlightsKiwi.com
- Adventure travel insuranceWorld NomadsWe receive a fee when you get a quote from World Nomads using this link. We do not represent World Nomads. This is not a recommendation to buy travel insurance.
Some of these are affiliate links: if you book through them I may earn a small commission, at no extra cost to you. More about this.
My experience
Ticked off, but the full story is still to be written up.
Over to you
Is “Cycle The Death Road” on your bucket list, or have you already done it? Tell me in the comments, and if you've got a question about it, ask away and I'll answer.