El Camino de la Muerte is 69km long, drops 1.2 km from a staggering height of 4650m above sea level, kills around 300 people a year… and we were going to be riding it on downhill bikes.
The downhill ride is one of the most popular tours around La Paz as was evidenced by the bewildering choice of operators as we walked around town. Gung Ho attitudes aside, there are still serious safety concerns even though most of the traffic has moved to a newer, safer road recently.
Our tax advisor in the UK told us of an incident involving a friend of his who’d been killed on this road just before we left on our trip. It soon became apparent that everyone had a different story on who was to blame for this tragedy.
Most stories indicated that he’d stopped to take photos and had gone over the 600m high edge while racing to catch up with the group ahead. Others said he’d lost consciousness due to the altitude or that there had been a mechanical failure.
Shortly after this a highly experienced guide met his end when he stopped to tell the grizzly story to his group. With his bike parked perilously close to the edge of where the tourist had gone over, he started to pedal off. Unfortunately his pedals spun once before gripping the chain, just enough for his horrified group to watch as he slid over the edge backwards to his death.
Yes, safety was going to be a concern.
Hmm… Thats a long way down.
Suited up and sassy !
Dee getting ready at the start of the death road
Our criteria for selecting a bike company boiled down to a number of critical issues – such as the design and relative coolness of the T-shirt – but it was the old fashioned human factor that won the day in the end.
We were in a Gringo cafe called Luna about to sample some of the Bolivian wine – with some trepidation after the Peruvian wine debacle – when a guide from the Luna bike company sat down at our table and started to explain why going with him would be a great idea.
We could see that the English couple at the table next door were about to fall off their chairs from the eavesdropping so we invited them to join in the sales pitch. We liked the guide, and when push came to shove the next day we sauntered into their shop and paid our dues for the trip.
Waking super early the next morning we trekked across town – stepping over and around the denizens of La Paz eating soup with things like sheep’s jaws floating toothily in it – meeting up with the rest of our group for breakfast at the Luna cafe.
Dee was delighted to see that the English couple we’d joined in the sales pitch had also signed up as she was becoming concerned by the thought of adrenalin pumped boys hammering their way down the road. We piled into the mini-van for our two hour drive to the start of our trail, the driver immediately pumping up the adrenaline with tunes from a mix CD that would have been marked “Extreeeeme MIX !!” or something similar.
The start of the downhill run was a parking lot near a lake at a wheezy 4650m above sea level. After donning our ninja-turtle-like body armour, we gave our bikes a whirl around the parking area before lining up for our safety briefing.
Dee was characteristically attentive to the safety instructions ensuring that no detail was lost. Al managed to absorb the “don’t fall over the edge part” which seemed like sensible enough advice.
All good so far at the first stop point
Ready to roll
All smiles at the end
And then we were off ! Flying down the wide tarred road with the snow capped Andes crowding over our bikes as we whipped around the serpentine turns was unbelievably amazing. (Note to self – don’t lick lips when tearing downhill in the cold mountain air.)
All too soon we turned off the nicely tarred road onto the El Camino de la Muerte – the road of death. The first thing you notice is the drop, falling away over half a kilometer – Al starts to wish he’d been paying more attention to the briefing instead of admiring his luck at getting the Superman sticker on his bike.
Cars being “blessed” by various priests, witches etc while liberal amounts of beer are sprayed over them.
Bowler hatted ladies joining the gloriously unmelodious dance
The road itself was barely wide enough for two cars to pass each other and every corner was blind. Although the purpose of the ride was to rev up the adrenaline levels and bask in the absence of the health and safety restrictictions, the white flashes of the crosses dotting the edge bore a mute testimony to the lives lost along this stretch of road (Dee stopped counting after the first 20 or so)…
Local legend states that part of the reason for the large number of accidents is in part due to the largely Catholic population of bus drivers and their practice of blessing themselves with one hand whilst passing these memorial crosses – thus rendering one hand obsolete in the driving process on the worst corners…
After a thrilling decent we ended up in the little town of Coroico where it appeared that the locals where about three days into a ¡fiesta! without and time off from the beer.
The mishmash of local customs and the Catholic church were evident in the “blessing” of the local taxis. A priest would walk around with the holy water, followed by a local witch with some foul smelling smoke and finished off with a formula 1 winner like spray of beer all over the vehicle (this disturbed Al the most…)
Al was however heartened to note that on closer observation at least some of the alcohol was passing the lips of the locals as we watched one of the tail end trumpeters in the various marching bands stagger down the cobbled street ahead of him alone, oblivious to the fact that his fellow band members had taken a right turn…
After and enjoyable rest at lower altitude, it was time to return to the rarefied atmosphere in La Paz for our next adventure: conquering the summit of the 6088m Huayna Potosi !
I like the “cover all bases” approach to the taxi blessing…