The very good news about this dirt road is that you don’t have to take it. Rain can make the road muddy and slippery, and rain or fog can reduce a driver to feeling blindfolded. It’s not hard to see why the road was so dangerous: It’s barely the width of one vehicle, with no guardrail to protect you from falls of up to 2,000 feet. It’s not for the sissies and shouldn’t be attempted by novice drivers. With these numbers, in 1995, the Inter American Development Bank christened this highway 'The Most Dangerous Road in the World”. The estimation is that 200 to 300 travellers were killed yearly along the road. Based on the ratio of death per mile, on an average, 26 vehicles plummet over the edge each year, claiming more than 100 lives. This road was legendary for its extreme danger. The former world’s most dangerous highway (alternatively known as Death Road, Grove's Road, Coroico Road, Camino de las Yungas, El Camino de la Muerte, Road of Death, Unduavi-Yolosa Highway) climbs up a famous Bolivian mountain pass, La Cumbre, at an elevation of 4,650 metres (15,260 ft) above the sea level. It was the black widow of roads and notorious for being the most treacherous stretch of road in the world as threats of landslides and the 1000 meter cliff faces pose serious danger while traveling its slick and rocky path. This forces fast vehicles to stop so that passing can be negotiated safely. A driver on the left has a better view of the edge of the road. Furthermore, descending vehicles never have the right of way and must move to the outer edge of the road. The thin road climbs jungle-clad mountains to a height of 4,650m, winding and turning all the while with nauseatingly deep canyons below. If you get dizzy in a fast moving glass pneumatic vacuum elevator then be sure to avoid this road at all costs.ĭozens of vehicles went off the road each year, and with vertical drops of up to 1000m over the edge, annual fatalities reached into the hundreds. While the rest of Bolivia drives on the right side, here vehicles drive on the left. To be fair, it’s technically not considered the “World’s Most Dangerous Road” anymore due to the construction of a new highway close by, which directs most traffic away from its path. It’s estimated that 200 to 300 people traveling on it died each year. This gravel dirt track covers a 69-kilometre (43 mi) stretch between La Paz and Coroico, in the Yungas region of Bolivia. La Carretera de los Yungas was, probably, the most famous road in the world as well as the most dangerous.

The road of the dead