Born to be wild?

Get your motor runnin'
Head out on the highway
Lookin' for adventure
And whatever comes our way...


If you live in La Paz, Bolivia it's wildly dangerous just to get home.
This is DEATH ROAD. As in you can get killed here highway.



Dustin posts about it here. Be sure to click on the pictures for a close up look at this thing.

Like a true nature's child
We were born, born to be wild
We can climb so high
I never wanna die

Born to be wild
Born to be wild

Would you do this? Not me, no way Jose. Dustin got me curious so I checked this road out a bit more. The narrow stone and boulder strewn road is not the only danger. It is three miles above sea level making breathing very difficult. There are rocks raining down from above; in the rainy season the drenched road turns into slime that can and have washed folks right over the edge; in the dry season it is so dusty it's like a blinding sandstorm;
cell phones do not work up there (there is no help service anyway); there are huge vertical cracks in this thing; if you look through the passenger side window you can see the river in the canyon below; no gaurdrails; and hairpin turns and dropoffs. As if that's not enough, many drivers move at breakneck speeds on this road flying past the many markers where others died.


The good news is, they are building a new road, a by-pass to replace the Death Road. The bad news is, they have been working on it for 20 years.