Last Saturday I did the mother of all tourist attractions in Bolivia: The World’s Most Dangerous Road. You also get a t-shirt for your trouble on this one. The name of this attraction irritates me a lot. Give me some statistics. How many people have died here? How many gringos have died here? There better be at least one a day. This whole thing of selling a mainstream activity as edgy and adventuress drives me crazy.
Before I arrived I thought that this attraction should be called The Disused Road That Was Dangerous But Now Is Just a Place Where Lazy Gringos Go To Fecklessly Fill a Hole Inside Their Vacant Souls. Personally I signed up to do this just so I wouldn’t get stuck at a party trying to explain why I didn’t do it and therefore run the risk of exposing my antipathy about backpacker culture (of which I am one).
Our mate Hesther claimed that she had a great time doing the Dangerous Road so I took my foot of the hater-pedal before we arrived in the morning. When we arrived at Luna Tours we met our two UK companions for the day, had a typical crap Bolivian breakfast and headed out. Our guide, Octavia, was a reassuringly friendly Bolivian dude who rattled through his banter in a practiced though earnest manner.
Economically as possible this was what proceeded:
ONE: Hours of 90s “rock” hits... like Nookie, Wonderwall, Between Angels and Insects, Boom and Zero. I am not being facetious when I say that this was wonderfully nostalgic even though I was not a fan of any of these songs in their day.
TWO: A myriad of climates... you start of in the freezing and windy Andes (about 3500 metres) and finish in the sweltering heat of the jungle surrounded by butterflies and swifts.
THREE: Amazing scenery... the mountains are larger than life on this ride, they swallow everything. Cars on the horizon looked like Tic-Tacs and people like small grains of quinoa.
FOUR: The Halo moment... the surrounds looked so grand, alien and perfect. The day was perfect and the sky was blue. Then a jet flew overhead, slowly edging across the sky leaving a massive vapour trial. It was a scene straight out of Halo. Amazing.
FIVE: The road actually turned out to be dangerous... OK, sure people had died here and that is not something to be trivialised one iota, but what was frightening for me was the 50 metre landslide that took out the road about halfway down. Possibly occurring earlier in the morning. As the guide transported the bikes across the slip small rocks (i.e. about the size of baseballs) were still falling from the cliff above. At one stage a bigger piece came down and scared the shit out of a guide who was heading across. He gingerly ran towards the other side barely hiding his (appropriate) fear.
SIX: Have I mentioned that this is a lazy activity for lazy gringos? It is downhill all the way so you don’t even have to peddle. While this was a criticism before I had done the ride I have absolutely changed my mind now. The exhilaration of being in this environment speeding down a hill is truly thrilling. No amount of cynicism could take that away from me this time.
SEVEN: A cute kitten at the end of the ride harassing the local tomcat and chickens on the main street.
EIGHT: A swim and a beer at the end of the ride. The pool at Esmeralda, Coroico was really nice and the weather was balmy. It was the perfect way to end the ride and because we went with a smaller tour company there were no other people there at the time. We had the whole place to ourselves.
Thank you The World’s Most Beautiful Road That Is Mostly Disused And Also Quite Dangerous In Some Parts. It was nice to be proved wrong so thoroughly (Walter Benjamin-type criticisms aside). Amongst that beauty I shed a tear I was so amazed. That is no lie.
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