14 February, 2007 |

Road of death

Any road can be unsafe to a certain extent. But some roads are really very dangerous. An old road in Bolivian province Yungas (North Yungas Road) is considered as the most dangerous road in the world and is known as “Road of death”.
Annually the road “takes” lives of 100-200 people. According to one of the sources, the road has been constructed in 1930th by Paraguayan prisoners. Other people say that here it was built by the American building company in the middle of the last century.
The road goes down from the height of 3, 6 thousand meters up to 330 meters above sea level. Here there are very abrupt slopes, a slippery and dirty covering. Sometimes, two cars can’t part on this twisting and extreme road, so, it makes drivers to stop, go forward, to take a reading by estimation of the situation and to agree on further actions.
By the way, one of local road rules orders to the driver of a going down car to keep external line of road, and the priority of right travel is always given to climbing uphill transport. The most interesting is that even one lorry can somehow to find necessary place on the road, besides, that lorries and buses is the basic transport on the “Road of death”.
During the journey the drivers should deal with not the most favorable meteorological conditions: the cool plateau of the Andes with monthly average temperatures from 6 up to 11 degrees is replaced by damp jungle of Amazon. There, the road is not only narrow, but it is also very slippery. Asphalt covers only the first 20 kilometers of the way, the rest is a dirt and clay. Also do not forget, that a motor-vehicle park of Bolivia is a very old car park with worn out cars and busses with the erased trunks.
Because of dense fogs it very often happens so that the road becomes visible only in some meters forward. And then it is necessary to move very slowly and accurately. By the way, tropical downpours often provoke landslips, and the piece of road can simply be washed off. So, here is the recipe of fatal fear.
However North Yungas Road is one of few routes connecting northern Bolivia with the capital, therefore its exploitation does not stop even for a day. The danger of the road has made its popular among tourists.
Many people come here to lift a level of adrenaline in blood, having gone down on it on an off-road car or a mountain bicycle. Not all of them come back. But those who have managed to pass it and to survive, compare this route with the conquest of the Everest. And usual inhabitants of Bolivia continue “to submit” this road every day.

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