Very early in the morning we arrived to the office which was closed and after waiting and wondering if maybe they were picking us up in the hostal, the guide finally arrived.

We then picked up a Brasilian couple who happened to be in the tour to Chacaltaya the previous day and in a white van an old driver with very few teeth took us for a ride uphill to the starting point that would last an hour or so.

He then pulled over on the side of the new road where we had our breakfast at about 4,700 mts above sea level. We got all the equipment on, tried the breaks of the bikes and with no more than a couple of recommendations our downhill began.

For the first 40 minutes we rode on a paved road at approx. 45 km/h. The scariest part was having buses or trailers honking behind you, otherwise the wind blowing in your face and the amazing views are totally worth dying. We then moved onto the old non-paved road which is the most dangerous, its two ways with very narrow parts where hardly one car can pass through and up to 700 mts cliffs. Here, the fun really began. Eventhough we had full suspension bikes, we reduced the speed to 25 km/h, still fast enough to lose control and get killed. The Death Road, named the most dangerous in the world has taken thousands of lives, there are hundreds of crosses on the way. Actually, on our way down the guide showed us a car which had just fell down the cliffs 2 weeks ago where 4 Bolivian tourists died.

We didn’t feel that unsafe due to the perfect weather conditions and the fact that almost no more vehicles are using this road as a new road has been built some years ago. Anyway, it was over 64 km downhill crossing rivers, waterfalls, crazy killer curves but it was a lot of fun; our bodies used a lot of adrenaline.