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It was snowing as the bus crested the mountains surrounding La Paz. The road curved away and into emptiness, mist and cloud hanging low over the road, obscuring everything in shifting, coiling white. Above the road stark and towering black crags soared and could be glimpsed through the white for brief moments. Jagged cascades of water tumbled down by the road.
A little lower and the damp earth was visible, birds scuttling among the low bushes and lonely shepherds wrapped in tarps hunched by the roadside. Long skeins of abandoned stone fence unravelled across the highland fens, and great Grendeline electricity stanchions loomed out of the mist.
A little lower and the great depths plummeting away from the road were visible. The sheer black cliffs began to give out to steep green slopes. Further coils of pale road were piled against the cliffs. Rusted signs leaned along the roadside.
A little lower and we emerged out of the cloud, the road looking up and down long, verdant canyons. Windows opened, layers were shed and the bus crawled around trucks and tractors working to clear fresh, muddy avalanches from the road.
A little lower and silhouettes of vultures were pasted against the sky. Branches and leaves lashed out at the passing bus and the dust of the road coated everything in yellow. We reached the bottom of the canyon and passed alongside a river, letting people off at the most unlikely of locations, their bus stops nothing but a tree among a thousand other overgrown trees.
And then we arrived in Coroico, a pretty town of step cobbled streets and fading little buildings clustered on a long green spur overlooking the valleys and looked over by the towering mountains. Coroico is the largest town (population 5000) in the Yungas, an area stretching north from La Paz to the Amazon basin, and encompassing tropical lowlands and stark highlands. It produces the country’s best coffee and coca, as well as an abundance of fruit, and traces of gold in its riverbeds.
African slaves that survived the mines of Potosí ended up settling in the Yungas, where the humidity and warmth was a welcome relief after the frigid mines. They mixed culturally with the local Aymará people, adopting traditional dress and indigenous language, but marrying mostly among themselves, so that now, more than a hundred and fifty years later Coroico and the Yungas are home to most of the few black Bolivians. These people don’t fit into the usual polarised race politics of Bolivia – where people are either brown and indigenous or white and ruling-class – and as such are a marginalised, forgotten minority.
At 1700 metres above sea level Coroico feels unlike anywhere else I’ve been in Bolivia. People dress more scantly and all drinks are served cold; two things I have grown quite unaccustomed to, but totally necessary in the heat. In the evening an arsenal of bugs seek out unprotected flesh, and the central plaza falls quiet far earlier than in the highlands.
Situated at one end of Bolivia’s most famous road and conveniently close to La Paz, Coroico is becoming something of a resort town for visitors. Most of the hotels have pools, and there is very little else to do except eat and swim and lie in a hammock. Although I managed to lose hours by the pool or pilfering books from the hotel book exchange (the only way I could justify the cost of staying in Coroico), I found the town pretty-but-boring. To busy myself, and to earn more time in the pool I scaled a tall hill behind the town, and found the humidity more difficult than the altitude anywhere else (the hill reaches 2450 metres and as such is still lower than any other place I’ve been in Bolivia). From the summit a magnificent view, gusts of butterflies and many many hungry insects.
I went to Coroico to relax and to see another side of Bolivia. After two nights I found I had no desire for further relaxation and that I couldn’t find anything more to see of this other side of Bolivia. The hotel and the pool scene just weren’t doing it for me, and I found myself eager to be back in the highlands where the pace is less relaxed and swimming seems ridiculous and cycling actually is dangerous.
It seems I can’t come to La Paz without getting caught up in some profound existential dilemma. On my first trip the question was of whether or not I would visit San Pedro prison (i wrote about that too, here); on my return it was whether I would cycle the world’s most dangerous road.
The World’s Most Dangerous Road, also known as the Death Road, was so dubbed by the Inter-American Development Bank, based on the number of fatal traffic accidents on the road. The road is a thin and muddy thing, wrapped around precipitous peaks and cliffs and linking the mountain passes around La Paz (over 5000 metres above sea level) with the humid little village of Coroico (1700 metres above sea level) in 70 short kilometres. Two vehicles can barely pass each other on the road, and with the thick mists and heavy rains that cling to the mountains, the slightest miscalculation can send vehicles plunging hundreds of metres straight down into the jungles below.
The main tourist strip in La Paz is festooned with advertisements for the Death Road; guided tours of the road are a combination of bussing and mountain biking down the road, from the frosty heights to the tropical valleys where hot showers, swimming pools and buffet lunches await.
Lonely Planet gives serious, precious page space to the Death Road, urging readers to choose their tour agency carefully, as a lax mechanic or slightly faulty bike will lead to almost certain death (they also report 8 gringo deaths on the road since tours started more than ten years ago. Compared to the more than twenty annual bus or truck accidents that earned the road its reputation, the probability of gringo fatalities is incredibly small). The recommended agencies charge more for peace of mind; the price of a tour is about the average monthly wage in Bolivia.
Since the last Lonely Planet guide to Bolivia came out a new and wider road has opened up, giving the buses and trucks that had so much trouble with the original road a safer means of descent. This means the Death Road is today used almost exclusively by tour groups.
When I arrived in Coroico I found myself one of the few gringos in town not to have cycled the road. Talk around the hotel pool was of how the road wasn’t quite as dangerous as adventurers had expected. The scenery was spectacular, sure, but where was the death-defiance?
I held my tongue and didn’t point out the contradiction between paying for the safest tour outfit possible and still expecting to encounter death and destruction. I also resisted the urge to point out that while the road might not seem dangerous enough to many gringos, to the hundreds upon hundreds of families that have lost people on the road, it is no doubt quite dangerous enough. The crosses and flowers that line the road (and every road in Bolivia) should be a testament to the road’s danger.
Today the Death Road is probably the safest road in Bolivia. It is the only road in Bolivia not menaced by speeding, drunken, test-messaging bus drivers. It is the only road in Bolivia on which every commuter wears a helmet, a reflective vest, and on which every vehicle has been tested and tuned before every trip. It is the only road on which every five to seven travellers have their own guide trained in first aid. It is the only road on which all travel is cancelled during inclement weather (the biggest bike agency in town strongly advises against cycling the Death Road during the rainy season, but in spite of this will still take you if you really really want to go). It is the only mountain road that is reserved for one way travel. Given what the road has become, cycling it is far safer than cycling downtown La Paz, or just about any other part of Bolivia.
Needless to say I couldn’t bring myself to cycle the road, settling instead for watching the stunning, changing scenery from a cramped bus that safely traversed the new road (and cost less than the per person toll for using the Death Road). Every tour includes a free ‘I survived the Death Road’ t-shirt in its package; I just couldn’t reconcile myself to the idea of owning such a shirt. How could I wear it in Bolivia among Bolivian friends? Where could I hide it while in Coroico, where for generations anyone wishing to leave the village actually did risk death in the back of a truck on that notorious and once-dangerous road?
So no world’s most bizarre prison tour for me, and no world’s most dangerous road for me. Another superlative activity passed up using the excuse of cultural sensitivity. I wish someone would put that onto a t-shirt. I survived the world’s silliest conundrum. I survived Bolivian bus drivers. My other car is a rickety old farm truck full of campesinos and potatoes. I chose the boring, sensible path and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.
