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Click on the map to unveil our journey
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Back to La Paz on the 28th of December, enough time find and to prepare a good party for Newyears eve ...
But first their was another thing to do, a wish which was as exciting as eerie, riding the deathroad ...
The Deathroad
This name is not for nothing ...
This road goes from the white mountain tops of La Paz at an altitude of +4650m to the jungle of Coroico at +300m.
That means a decent of more then 3000 meters !
Problem is that the road is unceiled, not supported by lantarnlight or whatsoever and that it is basically a single-lane width road,
altough there's traffic in both direction.
Plus there's not really any guardrails while the dropoffs can reach more than a 1000 meters !
With drivers already driving for hours and hours before taken up the road, they are often very (tired) and one moment of loss of concentrating can mean drop, which means death ...
Appearantly a bus goes down once every 2 weeks, not to mention other transport 'objects' ...
Some survive though, even when busses go down they jump out and hold on on trees.
Or for example our friend Jimmy from our time at Cusco.
while rounding a bus, he had the chance to ride into another one or ride off the road.
The chose the latter and thankfully he landed on something, altough missing 3 teeth by that.
Now it's Jimmy Silverteeth, because that was appearantly even cheaper ...
But let's start by the begin.
We took the bus from La Paz to the top of the mountain.
It was quite chilly over there and we started right off ...
I always thought not to take any risks, but being experienced with small tires of a 'tour de france - bike' and having ceiled roads winding but predictable,
I was well up front and enjoying it a lot ...
Quite often we had some stops to regroup and for our guide to explain something.
After the only little decline of the tour we got to the actual point where the death road begins, at +4300m.
I already wondered if that was it ...
Seeing the road in front of me made me thinking to really slow down this time.
You could see a very thin line on the mountainslopes where trucks looked like little ants.
You could also see trucks trying to pass each other and that took a long time,
appearantly manouvring a lot ...
This was also where the road got really wobbly and finally was not ceiled anymore ...
Well, off we went and we were just shaking on our bikes because of all the holes in the road.
But it was also not too bad actually and after some minutes we got back into our speedy riding ...
We had to stop lots though ...
Once we stopped because there was big qeue of trucks as one had a mechanical problem.
Yes there no way out once something like that happens.
Other times we just regrouped and our guide explained us something or showed us something,
like Christian crossed and wrecks of the unlucky ones ...
It was said that once there has been an Israelian girl who rode straight off the mountain and died.
Appearantly her brakes did not work and she had complained about them already a few times before.
Just after hearing this story, we got to a flat bit, with some trees being able to protect us if we were ever going to loose control.
I felt strange driving and when I checked I had a flat tire.
Well, quite lucky to have it had at that point.
The more we went down, the more dusty the road became.
Which was quite exciting though, cause if there was a bus in front of you, you could hardly see anything of the 'sandstorm' it creates behind it ...
Like that it was all about intuition and challenge to take it over.
It did not kill me, cause it's still me how writes this story ...
 At last we got to Coroico, a nice little town and we got ourselves some nice beers as mission was accomplished.
The way back was in the back of a van.
The mind was now more used to it and quite calm, but there are some dodgy moments.
If you see how some drivers 'park' their trucks for other to pass them, it's right on the edge ...
Very skillfull indeed.
Apart from this trip being very exciting, it was also very very beautifull !
I thought at the time of this being the ultimate highlight.
Now i don't disagree with this opinion !
Pictures on this page are courtesy of
http://www.tour-du-monde.net/
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