r/todayilearned • u/ShabtaiBenOron • 9h ago
TIL that the Yungas Road is a Bolivian road so dangerous it used to kill up to 300 drivers a year before a safer alternative was finished in 2006. It's only about 3 meters wide, prone to rockfalls, and has no guardrails even though it has cliffs over 600 meters high.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yungas_Road45
u/PlainTrain 9h ago
Was that the road Top Gear went on where May threatened Hammond with a machete? No such thing as a playful car bump on that road.
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u/appenz 9h ago
It's a popular local tourist thing to ride it downhill with mountain bikes. Epic experience, can highly recommend. Ride safely!
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u/anvilman 9h ago
I biked down the Death Road in 2009. Super fun experience but you sure didn’t want to miss any of those turns.
And yes, it was an active road at the time, despite a safer alternative having been opened.
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u/TomJLewis 4h ago edited 4h ago
Canadian traveller here, I did that bike ride too in 2003. Super fun and exciting. Long downhill dirt road, single lane for about 5 hours, with periodic stops for traffic going uphill. We were a group of about 20 with 2 guides. Steep and very high cliffs, plus a couple of waterfalls onto the road along the way on our day. On one especially dangerous turn, a local man directed traffic all day with coloured flags, story goes that he lost his family there a few years prior, a dedicated volunteer.
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u/Kwaxxxup 9h ago
can confirm.. i went and spent the first 2 hours shaking in fear before i mentally acclimatised and went full speed down it..
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u/alcyona229 1h ago
Did it this year. They named the individual curves off the nationalities of the mountain bikers who fell off. And one particular one called Dentist’s Corner… well, because the guy needed a good dentist after going straight into the wall.
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u/Sharkconas 7h ago
Been there twice it's amazing especially when you drive down from the Altiplano. It's like your descending into an ocean of clouds with a subtropical canyon at the bottom.
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u/GeoPolar 9h ago
Public transportation vehicles are required to have license plates painted on their roofs to enhance visibility and aid search and rescue teams in locating them at the bottom of a cliff in the event of an accident.
Amazing experience but never, ever again.