The new Death Road (by Laura)

One of the biggest tourist draws in La Paz is to cycle down 'The Death Road', a ride which takes you from 4,700m at La Cumbre to the sub-tropical Yungas at 1,700m: You ride 65km in about 5 hours along single track road, with a sheer drop on one side. It has been dubbed 'The World's Most Dangerous Road' and is a truly spectacular ride (see top).

Four years ago when I was in La Paz, lorries and traffic still used the road as it was the only means of reaching La Paz from Las Yungas, meaning that no sooner had you cycled down the road, you had to jump in a van and enjoy the whole experience the other way around.

Now, a new road has opened, having the luxury of two lanes, asphalt, road barriers and speed limits. Both roads are incredible feats of engineering and provide extraordinary and beautiful views across the neighbouring valleys.

We have travelled up the new road on two occasions now, the last in thick fog with a very cheery driver who was a veteran of the route and took all the hairpin bends with a wonderful laziness. And both these journeys left me wondering whether the new road can lay any claim to improving the safety of the journey (left).

The road itself is not finished - there are still large sections which are either cobbled or dirt road and have no road markings (pretty essential we thought when you have only these to follow in the fog).

Large parts of the hillside have been blasted away to build the road, but these have become unstable with rain and have been patched up merely by pasting them with concrete. You can see them bulging as you drive by.

People travel the new road at far greater speed than before. Even the fog (with worse visibility than you might expect on a bad day on Dartmoor - see right) did not slow people down.

And the two lanes may seem like a good idea, but in fact just give drivers the opportunity to overtake: on corners, in tunnels, at speed, in rain, all the way up to La Paz....

The whole journey is moderately harrowing.

The old death road achieved its status unsurprisingly because of the level of fatalities that used to occur on it each year. The new road may well be vying for the top spot in no time.


Laura