And...

Ok so heres the thing about the death road tour. It's this teeny tiny little dirt road with a wall of mountain on one side and a cliff on the other. Back when cars regularly used the road there were a lot of accidents. Not just crashes, cars falling down the mountain. The road has barely enough room for one car in most parts, and passing other cars is insanely scary. Many times one of the cars has to back up aways in order to get to a place wide enough for passing. The locals still drive it at an insane pace, though. They don't seem to notice the danger. Or they just don't care because they're in a hurry. There used to be drag racing on the road too, which might account for some of the death toll. Crazy.

Luckily they have a new road on the other side of the valley that goes to the Yungas now, and though it isn't much wider, at least its paved. There do seem to be fewer deaths now, so thats good. So now the original road is used mostly for bike tours. There are very few cars, not counting the mini tour buses that follow the bikers. People come from all over to do the death road tour. It is about six hours one way, mostly steep downhill, only about a forth of it level or uphill. Its mostly rainforesty jungle so its incredibly beautiful but it gets very hot. Luckily there are lots of areas where you ride right through the mini waterfalls.

There were three other dudes in our tour group, two from Spain and one from Germany. All three were pretty clearly extreme sport, adrenalin junkies. Really nice guys, though slightly intimidating to ride with. The German Dude went at a breakneck speed the entire time and popped his tire twice doing it. One of the other guys was about the same speed as Charlie and I (that is to say slow) and the other guy just slightly faster than us. The guide kept us mostly together by stopping every fifteen or twenty minutes for picture taking, snacks or water. He took pictures and video as he biked along side us. Now that's a job I could never do. At the end of the tour we stopped at a hotel to shower, swim if we wished, and eat at a buffet.

The only thing I really could have done without was the bumpiness of the road. The view was breathtaking, but I couldn't really see it because I was too busy navigating the bumpiness of the road as to avoid getting my brains jiggled right out of my head. It was so bumpy it made my hands cramp up and my bum bruise. Is mountain biking always like that? The heat was slightly annoying too, especially at the end when we were actually building up our own heat as well from the exertion. But its always incredibly rewarding to complete something like that. I'm still sore even though its been more than a week since then. But its a good sore.

Anyway, bla bla bla, the pictures were probably enough. And as soon as we get the video and pictures from the guide we will post them too.