‘La Carretera de los Yungas’, also known as ‘Road of Death,’ is called by many the most dangerous road in the world. Every year dozens of vehicles fall foul to it, tumbling into the deadly abyss beside it. It’s estimated that 300 people die there each year while attempting to navigate this hazardous carriageway. The notoriously famous road, for all the wrong reasons, provides a connection to the Amazon rainforest region in north Bolivia. And by far the most dangerous stretch is a 69-kilometer section that lies between La Paz and the small town of Coroico.
This scary piece of road is definitely not for the faint-hearted. It’s a rough old dirt-track that carves its way through the Andes mountains, in a remote jungle location where extreme weather conditions are the norm. In a YouTube video uploaded to the Free Documentary channel, viewers witness Omar, a local truck driver, negotiate the deadly stretch of road in his Volvo truck, while he transports a 25-ton load of timber from a remote rainforest area to the city.
Negotiating 'The Road Of Death'
Omar has been braving this hazardous road for 20 years. It’s his job to move loads to and from the region. Watching him navigate the deadly track makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end. The weather is stifling hot, and the air is full of dust as he slowly makes his way along the treacherous cliff road. “There are dangers everywhere, we must not make mistakes,” he says to his co-driver.
A fog descends which reduces his visibility to just a few meters, as he slowly proceeds along the precarious path. The views are breathtaking, but at the same time horrifying, if you are brave enough to look down.
“It’s a very dangerous spot, many people have died here,” says Omar, staring down into the abyss beside him. “We have to be very careful,” he remarks as he meanders along the windy canyon in his truck.
The large Volvo only just fits between the cliff-edge and the canyon. There are no guard rails, and the old mud-road is severely unstable and prone to collapse. Its quite stressful just watching him, as he negotiates the tight bends.
And surely enough, along the road he comes across the aftermath of a fatal accident that's just taken place. A truck, which had moved towards the outer edge to let another vehicle pass, has tumbled over the edge. The road gave away, and the vehicle fell one hundred and fifty meters into the ravine below. A somber reminder of the risk that he's taking.
Omar himself has lost colleagues, friends, and family on this lethal stretch of road, where a split-second mistake can be fatal. There are very few places to overtake, and passing other vehicles can be a huge dilemma. Especially for Omar, because it's much too dangerous to try and attempt a reversing maneuver in his big truck — he can only proceed forwards.
Each trip that he embarks on is a life-threatening experience, so it’s no wonder that he says a short prayer before he gets into his truck, and draws the form of a cross over his upper body with his hand when he gets in the driver's seat.
How 'The Road of Death' Got Its Name
The 'La Carretera de los Yungas' road is the result of work carried out during the Chaco War by Paraguayan prisoners in the 1930s. It's a single-lane dirt track road that has been dug out of the side of the mountains, with 200 hair-pin bends. The area is prone to extreme weather conditions. Tropical rainstorms and dense fog severely affect visibility, and sometimes drivers can hardly see two to three meters ahead of them. Heavy downpours of rain loosen the rocks on the cliff faces, leading to deadly landslides, and causing the already far too narrow road to erode away even more.
Bolivians normally drive on the right side of the road, but up here there are no rules. Drivers mostly drive on the left because they can get a better view of the road-edge. But most just creep along, in the hope that they don’t have to overtake an oncoming vehicle. At such great heights, vehicles that fall off the edge can drop thousands of feet onto rocks and boulders below. Few people survive. Numerous stone altars and crosses stand at the side of the road, marking the points where people have died, serving as a macabre reminder of the dangers involved. One of the worst incidents occurred on July 24, 1983, when a bus veered off the road and fell into the canyon, killing more than 100 passengers.
With such large numbers of people tragically losing their lives (estimated to be 200 to 300 per year), in 1995, the Inter-American Development Bank christened it ‘The Most Dangerous Road in the World’.
Adrenalin-Junky Paradise
The good news is that there is a by-pass now. A modern multi-lane road, built in 2006, which has guardrails and pavements, provides an alternative route. And as a result, the world-renowned Road of Death now sees a lot less traffic. But, because the new road is a much longer route, truck drivers like Omar still use the old road to save fuel.
Today, it's also a very popular destination for thrill-seekers and adrenalin junkies. A new tourist industry that caters for extreme sports fans is thriving. Local tour operators provide guided motorcycle and bicycle trips along the infamous road. But even this can be a dangerous activity, because at least 20 cyclists have died on the route since 1998.
Personally, we think we’ll leave this treacherous stretch of road to the professionals, to guys like Omar, who know exactly what they’re doing. And we wish him, and other motorists that do decide to undertake this insanely dangerous route, safe travels for the future.