We couldn’t end Bike to Work Week without a photo from perhaps our favorite biking experience- the death road in Bolivia.
If you’ve never heard of it, the death road is a somewhat infamous stretch of road stretching from La Paz, Bolivia to the amazonian lowlands. It’s a narrow road with sharp turns and a steep drop. Before the road was closed there were huge numbers of vehicle accidents every year.
The old death road is now closed to vehicles (the Bolivian government has built another road) so it’s completely open to cyclists. It’s an extreme adventure- five hours of downhill riding takes you from 4800m to about 1200m in elevation. It’s quite a climate change as well- at the beginning we were cold and the air was incredibly thin, by the end the temperature was somewhat tropical and we ate a late lunch in a jungle like setting.
Besides the awesome, completely downhill ride, we were dressed in cool protective gear that made us feel somewhat invincible. It’s definitely a dangerous activity, as you can see from the picture, the road has no shoulder, just a sheer cliff and unfortunately there have been a significant number of bike accidents. All the reason I tested the brakes time and time again before we actually started our descent.
To see more of our favorite photos from around the world check out our travel photo page. Let us know your favorites and we’ll include them in our photo of the day series.
Bolivia is a very inexpensive destination and a great place to go if you’re looking for cheap holidays abroad. It’s got an interesting combination of climates and plenty to do from extreme mountain biking (like the death road) to luxurious amazonian jungle lodges. You can check out our Bolivia Guide for interesting things to do.
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