Getting on the bus with the other twelve people about to mountain bike down Death Road I am feeling a bunch of different emotions, excited because its something I have had on my bucket list for a long time, happy because I am about to share this adventure with David, my wonderful husband and shit scared, because of the unknown…….
It takes us about an hour and a half to get to our location and I look out of the bus window and think “what the hell am I doing”. I can see the road descending and the other bikers look like ants from where I am. The road looks dusty, rocky and narrow. I swallow a massive lump in my throat and step out of the bus. “Its going to be just fine”, I say to myself. We are lucky as Gravity Bolivia, the tour company we are going with take us to a remote and extra area to ride down. So the staff get the bikes down from the roof of the bus and we all start to get familiar with the mountain bikes we are about to own for the next six hours. My heart is pounding as we go through the rules for the day, the operations of how the bike works and about the fourteen stops we will be taking throughout the day. Then we take off!!!!!
The first section of the ride is scary for me, everyone else is zooming past me happy to skid and ride over the large rocks on the road. David is a pure gentleman as he rides behind me yelling out encouraging comments to me. I smile to myself as it’s just another reason why I love this man. The final part of this section is probably the worst for me and I stop, look at the descend of massive rocks and choose to dismount my bike and walk down the sloop. 😉
As the day moves on and the group stops progress I start to feel more comfortable on my mountain bike and start to enjoy the experience. I gain more confidence standing up on the peddles through the rocky, slippery waterfalls and try not to ride the back brakes so much… I am surprised as to how fast the bike will go without the brakes on and it reminds me how steep the ride is. We started the ride at 4,700m (15,400 feet) and stopped at Huayna Postosi lookout at 6,088m (19,973 feet) . Then we proceeded to take a descend rapidly down a twisting asphalted road among mountain peaks, grazing llamas, alpacas and tiny villages. We stop for refreshments and photo’s and then take off again down a section of road where we enter the jungle itself and the most challenging part of the ride. This infamous narrow dirt road is cut precariously into the side of the mountain and descends 2,000m (6,500 feet). With 1,000m plus (3,300 feet) sheer drops and cascading waterfalls. We ride through mist, low cloud and dust. And I am loving it. How could I have been so scared at the beginning? I remind myself that I need to relax a little and just take things as they come.
As we near the end of the ride it gets progressively hotter and dustier. I encourage David to ride with the other guys as I am feeling pretty good about the day now. By the time we arrive at the bottom in Yolosa (1,100m/3,600 feet) we all feel tired, hot, dirty and our adrenaline is pumping. The ride is over.
After a cold beer (yes you heard me I drank a beer!!!) we decide to have a nice meal and then get back on the bus where we head out to our Hostel in Coroico where we are staying for the night. It was hard to picture at the beginning of the day that we would be finally reaching jungle as all I could see was dust, dirt and rocks. But here we all are in the middle of the Bolivian jungle, and how beautiful it looks.
