DEATH ROAD

This is a famous road in Bolivia known as "The World's MOst Dangerous Road" or to the local's just plain old "DEATH ROAD".The famous part strches for only 84kms,but drop's 1000's of metre's in altitude.To add to the danger it is mostly a single lane dirt road.Also it suffer's numerous avalnche's,the road just fall's away someday's and it's constantly getting washed away from water from the rains.It average's 100 death's a year,wich is good odds for such a short stretch of road,and from the picture's you can see why.
I booked my busride to the jungle from La Paz not knowing that the first four hours was on this road.I was told at the pub and from that point was shitting myself as i had heard about this road years back and said "i would never go down that on a bus", let alone a dodgy bolivian bus.
Anyway,no backing out.So once at the bus i got there early to change my seat to the left hand side window,if im gonna do it i might as well do it properly from the dangerous edge.I had my head out the window the whole time and was totally scared,but loving the danger too.The back tyre's were literally three to four inches from the edge of huge drops.At one point there is a 600 metre verticl drop,hard to imagine,even harder to stomach with your head out the window and a bus full of bolivians,i was the only whitey stupid enough to do the bus,most others fly.
After a while i got less scared and then,bango,boingo bongo,a huge noise from under the bus,everybody screaming and the old guy next to me grabbing my legs.They all thought we were about to die.
The bus came to a holt on a corner,a reasonably safe corner luckily,and there it was revealed the suspension completly smashed.Not the best road to travel in a dodgy bus we were stranded in the hills for what ended up been a marathon 9 hours (a full day).
We waited for another bus,no food,no water and the kids were so well behaved.I actually enjoyed the chance to take a walk in the dark along the road in the bush.The stars were sooo bright with no moon and no lights from towns to spoil it.There was also flashes of lightning coming from behind a mountain range in the distance and carrying through the valley.
But the best of all were the GLOW BUGS.I mean trillions of them,it was like a constant fireworks show that lasted all night,those little fella's are so amazingly green,bright and cool.At 11:30pm we got another bus and laoded up.
Made it down safely from the death road,although the rest was'nt a great deal better but it was much easier doing it asleep.
So an 18 hour busride turned out to be an 28 hour saga,ahhh Bolivia.
This is also the road i will be mountain biking down at high speeds when i return to La Paz.