ios-jailbreak.net78.net

Bolivia's "Road of Death"

The North Yungas Road (also Grove's Road, Coroico Road, Camino de las Yungas, El Camino de la Muerte, Road of Death, and Death Road) is a 61 to 69 km road (depending on source) leading from La Paz to Coroico, 56 km (35 miles) northeast of La Paz in the Yungas region of Bolivia. It is legendary for its extreme danger and in 1995 the Inter-American Development Bank christened it as the "world's most dangerous road". One estimate is that 200-300 travellers were killed yearly along the road.[1] The road includes crosses marking many of the spots where such vehicles have fallen. Upon leaving La Paz, the road first ascends up to around 5 km, before descending to 330 m (1079 ft), transiting quickly from cool altiplano terrain to rain forest as it winds through very steep hillsides and atop cliffs.

The road was built in the 1930s during the Chaco War by Paraguayan prisoners. It is one of the few routes that connects the Amazon rainforest region of northern Bolivia, or Yungas, to its capital city. Because of the extreme dropoffs, single-lane width, and lack of guardrails, the road is extremely dangerous. Further still, rain and fog can make visibility precarious, the road surface muddy, and loosen rocks from the hillsides above. On July 24, 1983, a bus veered off the Yungas Road and into a canyon, killing more than 100 passengers in what is said to be Bolivia's worst road accident. One of the local road rules specifies that the downhill driver never has the right of way and must move to the outer edge of the road. This forces fast vehicles to stop so that passing can be negotiated safely. Also, vehicles drive on the left, as opposed to the right like the rest of Bolivia. This gives the driver in a left-hand-drive vehicle a better view over their outside wheel, making passing safer.

The danger of the road ironically made it a popular tourist destination starting in the 1990s. Mountain biker enthusiasts, in particular, have made it a favorite destination for downhill biking, since there is a 64 km stretch of continuous downhill riding.











Posted on 3:47 AM by Zo Sun and filed under | 2 Comments »

2 comments:

bath mateus said... @ December 22, 2009 at 9:07 AM

So well and nice posting , I like it.
Bathmate

Anonymous said... @ November 27, 2010 at 5:33 AM

I agree with your Blog and I will be back to check it more in the future so please keep up your work. I love your content & the way that you write. It looks like you’ve been doing this for a while now, how long have you been blogging for?

daveharm.com
daveharm.com

USERS ONLINE:

Disclaimer

All the pictures and news shown on this blog are the property of their respective owners. We don't hold any copyright about these pictures and news. These pictures have been collected from different public sourses including different websites, considering to be in public domain. If any one has any objection to displaying of any picture and news, it may be brought to our notice by sending email & the same will be be removed immediately,after verificaton of the claim. please Email [ zohaib_sunesra@yahoo.com ] and we will remove the offending information as soon as possible.