THE MOST DANGEROUS ROAD IN THE WORLD!!!
Trip Start
Feb 28, 2010
1
23
41
Trip End
May 17, 2010
Rurrenabaque, Bolivia
Monday, April 12, 2010
So we decided to jam the Amazon from a little place called Rurre and we have been told that this was our best bet in Bolivia but since half of the county is Amazon we pretty much figured you cant go wrong anywhere. We researched the drive and when we were told that the road to Rurre is pretty crap and dangerous and it takes the bus 20 hours to cover the mere 400 kmīs so we decided that we would leave the bike and take the sixty rand bus with the other plebeians. So we chained our bike to a nearby hostal we went to the bus station to travel to the jungle.
The road that we used is called the Yungas Road but itīs generally known as, insert bassy classical music, "The Worlds Most Dangerous Road". Why is it called this, because itīs mad, and loads of people die each year on it because its so mad. We apparently were only on the road for 100kmīs but the road we took after was just as insane. So what happens when Bolivia finds out that one of its roads has been dubbed the “The Worlds Most Dangerous Road”, well most places would panic and fix the bugger, but it is now a major tourist attraction and you can mountain bike the damn road, and if you complete it you get a certificate and a shirt saying that you survived. The even more crazy thing is that not everyone makes the cycle, the week before we were there a girl died going down and all the tour companies denied her being on their tour…
Here is quite a good BBC article on it:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/6136268.stm
And here are some crazy photoīs:
http://villageofjoy.com/most-dangerous-roads-yungas-road-bolivias-road-of-death/
The government has however tried to curb the deaths on this stupidly scary road, and they implemented a bold plan which put in place a law which - long pause please - banned you from being able to drink booze and drive. I know, not only was the road the inspiration for ACDCīs Highway to Hell but everyone drove it drunk, so about a year ago Bolivia passed a law to ban drunk driving, crazy Bolivians!
So beside the fact that the road we were on was completely terrifying, obviously I was brave and was comforting all the scared females on the bus, it was an amazing drive. We were in the middle of the jungle and it gave us a really good sense of where we were headed, left and right was dense jungle perched precariously on the edge of super steep mountains with rivers raging in the valleys below. Every bend we took left us feeling terrified and amazed simultaneously and even though we thought we were going to die we would not have chosen another route.
Once it got dark and the scenery disappeared into the night we tried sleeping but the dodgy bus seats coupled with the horrible road rendered that idea a far fetched goal. And even though our bus broke down three times along the way we still made it to Rurre in a record six hours ahead of schedule at 4am. We all wanted to the tell the driver that it wasnīt actually a race and he did not have to drive so frikken fast but we were so happy to be alive we all just slinked away to find somewhere to sleep for a few hours before embarking on our Amazon Adventures.
Five days later we returned from the Amazon back to Rurre (Tinaīs bit about that is coming soon) and we got to spend some time in this funny little town. Its pretty much what you expect from an Amazon town, itīs on the water, all the buildings are made from what ever is available and everyone drives little motorbikes that get bought in with the buses. We headed straight up to the Mirador (lookout point) to get a better view of the town and there were also apparently some pools which in the amazon heat were very inviting. After getting a Chinese bike ride to the top of the nearby hill we went into to the first bar where we were met with Hebrew music, Hebrew posters, Hebrew food and what we have been told is called the Hebrew Herd. Now I must admit that the most common nationality that we have encountered in South America is actually Israeli because apparently after the army they all descend onto either South America or India, but Rurre was very OTT. 50% of the people in Rurre were Israeli and this translated in more signs being in Hebrew than any other language and there were loads of Israeli hostals, restaurants and whatever.
We decided to try the pools next door which were a) free and b) very quiet so we grabbed a beer each and sat in the pool that overlooked the picturesque town of Rurre. When it became dark we decided to leave but after the owners found out that we were Africans they made us promise to come back the next day at 8am for a reason completely unknown to us. Not really knowing what to do we agreed and hurriedly left before we agreed to any other strange requests.
We made our way into town to find some chow and we met our Aussie mates from the jungle so we sat down in a restaurant aptly named Mosquito Bar and later we met we met our Amazon guide Mosquito (Alex) there as well. This reunion naturally led to a few more beers and some drunken foosball. It was not a competition at all but I need to point that the South Africans thumped the Aussies 7-6, and after the trashing there was a minor game between myself and Mosquito which resulted in the score being a close 7-3 to the Bolivian, but I asked for drug testing and the ref to be arrested but to no avail.
The next day at the crack of dawn (8am) I headed up to the Mirador alone for the mysterious meeting and once I arrived I was introduced to a Swiss dude who, get this, designed all the raised highways in Cape town. I was the first African he met in 20 years and he was so keen to talk to and African he told all his mates that if they met an African they should send them to him for a chat. The fact that I was South African was even a bigger prize because he wanted to know how the country was doing and what was happening.
I drew him a picture of all the raised highways in Cape Town and when I showed him which ones were the famous incomplete highways he could not stop laughing at the fact that they were icons of Cape Town. He told me of his many adventures in Africa as he worked for all the emerging African governments but he eventually built some bridges in Bolivia and decided that that was where he was going to make his home. I bid him farewell after giving him a list of SA movies and CDīs and then Tina and I got back onto a bus and braved the road back to La Paz.
Comments
I'm just glad you are writing this article after you have done it and not before. Imagine Alison and I back in SA....No you dont want to imagine us worrying as only mothers can...didi xxx