During the day, when it’s impossible to see other vehicles coming, cars and buses sometimes have to back up (!!!) extremely slowly until they find a patch of road wide enough to allow the other car to pass. Thus, strange as it may seem, some drivers (and passengers) prefer to travel Death Road Bolivia at night when cars and buses have their lights on because they can see the lights of vehicles heading toward them and can plan ahead to stop at one of the slightly wider areas to wait for the other vehicle to pass. Since the road has so many curves and twists around each mountain, it’s difficult to see when cars are approaching from the opposite direction. Every 2-3 kilometers there is a slightly wider patch just wide enough for one or two vehicles going in one direction to pull over to the edge of the cliff to allow vehicles going in the other direction to pass. The first 20+ miles are now a paved 2-lane highway, but once you read the second stretch, it returns to being a one-lane dirt road. It has a total of over 200 hairpin turns. The road winds up and down the sides of several mountains in a zig zag pattern, then curves around each mountain and on to the next where the zigging and zagging begins anew. There are between 100 and 300 deaths per year and I’ve lost several of my friends on this road.Īlthough it is only really about 90 miles from La Paz to Coroico, the Bolivia road of death is carved around each mountain. The road is lined with small stone altars and crosses, each marking a point where someone has died on Death Road. At these heights, cars going over the edge can drop over 1000 meters in some places, crashing against boulders and trees as they roll over and over. From La Paz to the Cumbre it’s about 27 kilometers and you’ll be at 4643 meters above sea level at that point. Still, this hasn’t reduced the number of accidents that occur. However, now death road is a paved 2-lane highway between La Paz and the Cumbre (summit) where cars and buses stop for a break and something to eat in a tiny village called Unduavi.

When I was growing up in La Paz it was a one-lane dirt road all the way. The road of death Bolivia is the world’s most dangerous road because several hundred people die in accidents on this road each year. From Coroico it eventually leads to the small town of Rurrenabaque passing through towns like Caranavi. The Bolivia Road of Death is an 80-90 kilometer stretch leading from La Paz, Bolivia to the small city of Coroico, located to the North in the Bolivian yungas, a jungle high in the Andes mountains.

The road of the dead