Tuesday, December 9, 2008

The Death Road - Coroico, Bolivia

The Death Road is a mountain bike trail you can arrange from La Paz as a day-trip. The trail is quite interesting. You go up to 4.700 meters by bus and descend with a montain bike to Coroico town, which is located a bit above 1.000 meters over the sea level. The trail is 64km long and takes you downhill for more than 3.600 meters! It is absolutely amazing! All the way down.

Why is it called the death road? Because every year, a few tourists die going down this road... The rocky and dirty path can be quite slippery, and bikers going a bit faster or simply unlucky bikers, can lose control of their bikes and go down the endless cliffs along the road... And some cliffs are high as 800 meters...

With this background in mind, we were extremely excited to take the road and ride our bikes all the way down. And iwas as good as expected! Lots of adrenaline, excietement, a beautiful view and another awesome day in Bolivia. I love this country...

Of course I had to do my show, and was the only one to fall of the bike, among the other 12 bikers. With my Velib biking background plus being afraid to end my life at the age of 27, in a certain curve, I lost control and jumped from my bike...

Well, I got a sore knee, but alive and kicking to keep going north on the beautiful road through South America!




















No comments: