Camino de la Muerte TODO EL DÍA

There are roads that lead somewhere. And there are paths that take you to the brink of death. The Yungas Highway, known worldwide as The Road of Death, is one of those latter. At 4,650 meters high at its highest point, descending to 1,200 meters in the Amazon jungle in just 64 kilometers, this path, barely 3 meters wide, has a chasm of 300 meters of vertical drop on one side and a rock wall on the other. And no guardrail. ☠️

The legend of the road is more real than any myth. Between 1999 and 2003, 129 deaths and 104 serious injuries were recorded in this section alone. The locals call the river that runs down there "the river of souls", because during the rainy season it dragged bodies from vehicles that never arrived. They say that drunk truck drivers, to scare away fear, hung Singani bottles on cliffs as offerings to Pachamama. Some still swear that on foggy nights they see ghost lights coming down the mountain: the trucks that never stopped in time.

The weather is a two-faced traitor. Up at La Cumbre (4,650 m), the wind cuts through the bones and the temperature hovers around 5°C to 8°C with thick fog that reduces visibility to 10 metres. Below, in Yolosa (1,200 m), the thermometer rises to 30°C or 35°C with a humidity of 90% that soaks clothes in seconds. In a single descent, you will go from the polar cold of the Andes to the suffocating sauna of the Amazon jungle. Torrential rains (December to March) turn the road into a river of mud, where rocks fall from the mountain and waterfalls literally cross the road. The falls fall on your head while you pedal or drive, forming walls of water that you have to cross blindly.

The most striking thing: each curve has a name and has a history. Devil's Curve is a tight hairpin where the smaller truck cannot turn without reversing. Here 14 people died in a single accident when a bus plunged into the void. The Cascade of Fear falls directly onto a section where the path narrows to just 2.5 meters, with 0% visibility because the water and fog erase everything. Cyclists passing by say they feel an icy hand on their back, as if someone was pushing them over the edge. The Stone of Oblivion is a marker where the relatives of the victims leave flowers and drinks. Tradition says that if you don't leave a coca leaf there, the mountain will remember you in the next section.

The abyss is not a black background: it is a living jungle. You don't see the bottom because the trees and vegetation hide everything. He knows there is a river down there, but he doesn't hear it over the noise of his own heartbeat. The width of the road is, in some places, barely 50 centimeters wider than the wheels of a vehicle. White and yellow crosses painted on the rocks mark the exact spots where someone died. There are them every 200 or 300 meters. In total, more than 180 crossings along the 64 kilometers. Some have names written in indelible marker, plastic flowers already faded by the sun and empty beer bottles that served as a farewell.

And yet, it is now a cyclist's paradise. Since a new, safe road was built, Death Road has been closed to vehicular traffic and has become a world-class mountain biking destination. The descent lasts 3 to 4 hours. You pedal on loose, slippery gravel, with the chasm to one side and the rock wall passing inches from your shoulder. The tires skid in wet corners. The wind whistles in his ears. And on the most exposed stretches, where the road seems to float in the air and there is nothing between you and nothingness, the silence becomes deafening. All you can hear is his brakes screeching, his heavy breathing, and, if you pay attention, the distant echo of the river of souls below.