The World's Most Dangerous Road

La Paz, Bolivia

Humans always seem to be going some where.  It can be in reality or simply in our minds.  One way or the other we all seem to be making a journey.  Many of my titles I use for my blogs are hyperbole.  This is most certainly not one of them.  The road has been profiled in numerous adventure shows symbolizing a level of obscene terror.  It is the kind of place that people in suburban America will look at, gasp and wonder why in the hell anyone would ever journey down it.  At some point during my tenure in Bolivia it was my pleasure or misfortune depending on your perspective to experience it with my father and my neurotic Jew friend Ira. 

Bolivia is an odd place that often defies explanation.  Things that shouldn't be are and things that are shouldn't be.  When the Spanish first ventured into the area and encountered the remnants of the Incan and Aymara civilizations on the shores of Lake Titicaca they decided to build a city.  It would be a grand city and resting on the shores of one of the highest lakes in the world it would claim it's proper place in the history of civilization.  They were about to commence construction when someone discovered a lump of gold in a river flowing down a canyon not far away.

Vally of the Moon

Immediately all plans for construction by the lake were scraped and the city was constructed on top of Laja an ancient Aymara village resting on the banks of the Choqueyapu river.  The Spanish never seemed content to find their own spot and commenced destroying everything indigenous for the glory of Spain.  The city was named La Paz (the Peace) to commemorate the pacification of Peru.  In order to emphasize their peaceful nature they commenced enslaving the local population to work in their gold mines. 

Choqueyapu River

La Paz exists in a high altitude desert ranging in height from 9,500 to 13,400 feet above sea level.  Unlike most environments where the rich populate the high points of a city with a commanding view in La Paz, the wealthy districts are in the lowest point.  The higher you go the poorer it gets eventually spilling out into a city of poverty known as El Alto or The Height.  Much like the magnificent Los Angeles River the Choqueyapu essentially ceased to exist.  It became a drainage and sewage canal for the city and was largely covered up.  As it descends into the lower valley it has been walled and channeled protecting the often vividly pink water from human consumption. 

Living in La Paz is like living perched on the edge of a shear mountain cliff.  When you look out you see fog but can never really judge where the bottom is.  While living there I would often equate it to living on the Moon.  As remote and as dry as everything seemed it was only a sort drive over a 15,260 foot mountain pass before you suddenly found yourself dropping off the edge of the world. 


As you progress you are passed by a steady stream of trucks inching their way up the mountain loaded with fruits and vegetables that seem alien to the land.  It is almost impossible to comprehend where they could have possibly come from until you commence your descent.  Like a roller coaster reaching it's pinnacle the road descends rapidly almost 3,900 feet to the town of Coroico.  In moments the dryness is gone and a lush verdant green like no where I have ever seen in my life consumes you.

The image I paint sounds almost idyllic, like a Garden of Eden until the reality of the descent hits you.  With Ira at the wheel and sitting in the passenger seat I quickly came to learn why they call it the most dangerous road in the world.  It was built in the 1930's by Paraguayan prisoners captured during one of Bolivia's disastrous military forays.  These son's of the Pampas were carted off to the ceiling of the world and forced to carve a road out of a shear cliff.  I have tried to find more information about this particular point in history and their plight yet have repeatedly come up empty handed.  No one seems to write much beyond the same descriptive phrase cited almost universally in any account of the North Yungas Road.

There is a point when you start your descent whey you approach a few buildings and the road splits.  It kind of reminds me of the point in Mr. Toads Wild Ride at Disney Land when the car jerks and heads into a sign warning road closed. 

The road follows the side of a mountain and is for the most part only ten feet wide.  There are almost no guard rails insulating you from the roads edge and a several thousand foot drop down into a valley bellow.  Simply put, if you fall off they will never find you.  Every year hundreds die making the ascent and descent.  If you do a quick You Tube search you will find actual videos taken of whole buses sliding off into oblivion.  In some of the worst accidents over a hundred people would simply disappear.  I say disappear because making the road even more terrifying is the fact that the entire valley and even the road itself is often shrouded in a thick fog. 

The road itself is dirt and the very nature of the green verdant valley makes rain a frequent resident.  The result is mud that at times tracks and slips like a skating rink.  There are also moments when waterfalls will cascade down over the road that is burrowed into the cliff. 

Drivers navigating the road change sides when it commences allowing the driver on the left to open his door and look out at the edge of the cliff to make sure that their wheels track evenly with the edge.  This assumes that nothing gives way.  If it does you have to pray that your vehicle is balanced enough to counter the wheel hanging over infinity.  This was a difficult concept for Ira to comprehend at first.  Only after numerous incidents of locking breaks, shifting gravel and drivers opposite us with eyes the large as a full moon did he finally get it.

After a few minutes into the trip I found my right hand locked onto the hand rest almost cemented in place.  My fingers became claws digging in to the plastic.  My neck began to tense and I felt as if my spine and shoulders became fused in one place.

When you do come face to face with another driver it usually occurs as you take a sharp turn around one of the numerous hairpin turns.  They are completely blind turns, no mirrors and only at the one most dramatic point in the journey is there any assistance.  This occurs through the merciful assistance of a nearly toothless old man that sits perfectly perched at the corner of two roads intersecting like an L around the mountain side.  In his hand he holds a red and green flag.  This is one guy that could really ruin someones day.  He accepts a tip for his service and I could not help to think wherever he came from must have been a hell of a commute. 

In order to avoid a perpetual stand off the driver that is going down hill has to back up until enough space can be found for the other driver to slip around.  I think this has something to do with the breaks on the other trucks.  They are usually in such poor condition they don't want to risk them not holding as they inch backward.  As this process is going on invariably several more vehicles will stack up behind you each coming to a gavel grinding halt as it avoids a rear end collision.  Each driver then initiates the backing process making the entire exercise similar to those little square puzzles of numbers that have one empty space.  You keep sliding the tiles until order is finally found. 


Sufficient passing space can be defined in inches.  At some point after a seemingly endless period of my life hanging in the balance one of the most haunting things I have ever witnessed came to pass.  It wasn't the sight of mangled limbs or a car hanging in a tree.  It wasn't a bus sitting in the valley thousands of feet below as a river gushes over it.  In South America there is a custom that when a person dies in an auto accident a small road side cross or marker is erected.  The North Yungas Road is littered with them yet on one particular curve, at one hair raising turn a marker sat apart from all others.  It was a star of David.  "Oh my God." I thought.  A Jew died here. 

I recall just after one terrifying moment of exasperation Ira yelled out, "Why do the let trucks on here?"

Some how, some way we made it to Coroico where I commenced inebriating myself for the return trip.  Our adventure had a duration of one day which meant not even a night of sleep would rescue me from my terror.  By the time we made it back to La Paz my body felt physically exhausted.  I literally had neck and arm pains for days afterward from sitting so tense for so long.

Mercifully today things have changed for the better.  The Bolivian government supported by money from the United States Government opened an alternate route avoiding the most dangerous sections of the road.  It is paved and two lanes.  A modern highway I never had the pleasure of knowing.  Today most of the North Yungas roads visitors are mountain bikers.  The death toll has dropped substantially however a few intrepid bikers have taken flight, vanishing like birds packed with stones into the fog.  Perhaps the Yungas will one day become a legend that Aymara story tellers will recant.  They will tell about the beauty, the fog and the rain.  The waterfalls cascading and tropical jungle down below. Of course they will also remember the giant metal blocks that refused to fly.