The road connecting Rurrenabaque to La Paz has earned the nickname ‘Death Road’ given the fatalities that have occurred on it. Vehicles drive on the opposite side of the road for this stretch (ie same side as in UK and parts of Asia) so that the driver can see how close to the edge he is. There is a tourist bike ride that goes along it but taking the bus is definitely more adventurous… simply because the road is not tarmac and the bus violently rocks from side to side creating the fear that it will go over the sheer drop into the river (locals’ stories tell you they have done).
I left the NZ couple back in Rurrenabaque as they wanted a couple more days there and hopped on the bus to La Paz (which on a good day is 18hrs). When we reached the Death Road stretch a number of landsides had blocked the path. A bulldozer eventually turned up but in total I waited in the blistering sun for 5 hours (the guys in the vehicles ahead had already waited 4 hours!). There are no shops near by so best advice, pack supplies especially water.
Luckily I met a local guy called Enrique Drew (loves his surname as his grandfather was British), who suggested we walk past the parked vehicles and see the landslide. So I went with him, unfortunately I was in flip flops which got horrendously stuck in the mud that at points came up to my ankles (comedy in hindsight). As such I just took my shoes off, to the amusement of the locals, sightly painful on the feet but made mobility much easier.
The bulldozer simple clears the landslide off into the river below, but even as he is doing so more rocks just fall from the slopes above, a never ending cycle. They promise to tarmac the road… but started work about 5 years ago and its nearly impossible to see any tarmac on the road!!!
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